Purchase Process: Komoro

<aside> 💡

some thoughts on important operational details like documents necessary for purchase, renovation, general timeline, and cost.

</aside>

Timeline

Live in Los Angeles, 40 y.o. Married and two doggos
Living in Japan has been a long time dream for us but no knowledge/means and understanding.
Found Akiya Collective (formerly AkiyaDAO) mid 2023, and wanted to help and understand this process!
Sept/Oct 2023: Spend time with Akiya Collective as part of their Summer/Fall residencies. Got to see Izu in Shizuoka, Komoro in Nagano, and also Nojiriko (north of Komoro). Met some lovely people near Karuizawa, contacts at Komoro City Hall, Sakurai-san automotive.
April 2024: Spend time with Akiya Collective to help with Komoro Build Weeks, helping to clear out a lot of things from inside their purchased Akiya. Drove around Komoro and saw more of the town and surrounding areas.
October 2024: Spend time with Akiya Collective to help prep for Burning Japan. Drove around and saw more of the area like Sakudaira and their amazing 2nd Street store
I mention the above because before deciding on purchasing property, it is super recommended that you spend time in the areas that you are looking at to get a feel of the area, the people, the community, and the potential friends and neighbors. Without these trips, I would have never decided to make this step because community is so important! Having friends and like minded/people you vibe with is important (to me anyway!)
Late Sept/Early October, visited some real estate websites with local houses in Komoro. Narrowed down by location and condition. Saw maybe 4 or 5 that we wanted to see.
Connected with Takano-san, a local Komoro real estate agent that Michelle knows, and she introduced us together on LINE so we’ve been using LINE to converse. I’ve actually been just using Google Translate to communicate, and it’s been going OK.
Sent all 5 different ones to Takano-san. Many were unavailable, under contract, or converted to rentals, so only two were viewable
October 3: Flew to Japan
October 7: Visited home, 3LDK, listed for 14M JPY. Looks very nice. Not that much storage, but double paned full height windows on patio facing the south; Double pane in small Western room. Renovated November 2022. Upstairs doesn’t have double pane (but I plan to upgrade them)
Also visited Kiba’s spot just to check it out for information and help with decision making. More data = better? Very huge home! 7 BR! Great location.
October 16: Visited another home nearby previous home, 3DK, listed for 9M JPY. Looks abandoned, but seems to be recently cleaned in certain spots. Needs work to clear out vines on the gutters, the parking spot is super overgrown, and the layout seems interesting/tricky to install AirCon. Less likely to go for this one.
Oct 17, flew back to LA
Many many questions to Takano-san later (to a point where he stopped wanting to ask questions of the other party) we decided to move forward on the first house I saw on Oct 23