On a Sunday evening, have you ever felt a heaviness in your stomach when thinking about the week of work starting again tomorrow?
I think there are nights when you stare at your smartphone screen and sigh, feeling pushed around by workplace relationships or the unpredictable whims of your organization, wondering, ‘Is this really all there is until retirement?’
As a company employee myself, I went through a period of deep distress, feeling worn down by the stifling atmosphere and unreasonable nature of my organization.
While just trying to get through each day, I painfully realized the danger of entrusting my entire life and sense of self-worth solely to my company.
What I realized during those days was that creating options outside of my company salary, even if just a little at a time, creates a surprisingly large amount of breathing room in one’s heart.
Just being able to think that the company’s evaluation is not everything in my life has given me the feeling that I can now quietly distance myself from the unreasonable words of those around me.
In this article, I have objectively organized the practical ways to start real estate investment and the criteria that beginners should know as a means for company employees to have independent options.
Please note that the content introduced here is objective information that I have researched and organized myself, and it does not guarantee any specific profits or results. Please use it as a reference within a reasonable range that suits your own living environment and feelings.
Just a little bit first.
If you are currently wondering, ‘I want to have options other than my company, but what should I learn first?’, knowing about an environment where you can learn foundational knowledge in order might help reduce your anxiety.
In the ‘Side Hustle Practice Content “Zero-Aca”‘ that I am involved in operating, you can learn side hustles that suit you from the basics to practice for free. LINE registration is free, and after registering, you can watch over 100 lecture videos for free.
Please use it as a reference at your own pace while reading the article.
👉 Check out ‘Side Hustle Practice Content “Zero-Aca”‘
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Why real estate investment now as an option that doesn’t rely solely on a company salary?
A state of relying solely on a company salary is like supporting your entire life with just one thin pillar.
When that pillar wavers or the atmosphere at work becomes suffocating, the feeling that there is nowhere else to turn is exactly what corners the hearts of company employees.
There are various means for side hustles and asset formation, but a major reason why real estate investment is attracting attention lies in its stability, which is less likely to be disturbed by daily price fluctuations.
In markets like stocks where charts go up and down every second, there are many people who cannot stay calm because they are worried about price movements even while at work.
On the other hand, real estate is a tangible asset, and it has the characteristic of being less prone to sudden fluctuations where the value halves in a short period, and it is easy to function in the form of long-term inflation hedging and monthly rental income.
Furthermore, the ability to leverage the creditworthiness you have built up by working diligently as a company employee to obtain loans from financial institutions is a major characteristic not found in other means.
However, real estate investment is by no means a ‘magical mechanism where money automatically comes in if you buy it’.
If you start without putting in the effort of prior preparation and accumulating knowledge, there is a reality where the mechanism that should be your ally turns into a heavy shackle.
Is it dangerous to make inquiries right away? The “foundation of knowledge” that beginners should build first
The most common mistake people interested in real estate investment make is to immediately contact a real estate company and ask for proposals.
If you go for a consultation without any knowledge, you will be swept up in the pace of the salesperson’s pitch and will not be able to see through it even if they recommend a property that is convenient for them.
As one practitioner’s field experience points out, visiting a company with zero knowledge is “like jumping into the other party’s control yourself.”
Before contacting any companies, the first priority is to read several introductory books on real estate investment available at bookstores and grasp the classic principles common to all books.
For example, points such as “choosing a location in the city center,” “planning for early repayment,” and “anticipating an exit strategy (sale)” are commonly discussed in many good books.
By reading and comparing multiple books, you will naturally begin to see the difference between the biased claims written by specific companies to sell their own properties and the common standards of the industry.
Also, instead of being fixated only on immediate cash flow or tax-saving effects, you need to acquire an accounting perspective that views the balance of payments in terms of total gain, including the purchase price, income and expenditure during the operation period, and the final sale price.
Signing a contract without seeing the full picture of the actual numbers is the gateway to irreversible trouble.
Minimizing risk and gaining experience | Why beginners should consider low-priced studio apartments
When taking your first step as a beginner, it is wise to avoid jumping into whole apartment buildings or condominiums on a scale of 100 million or 200 million yen.
While larger amounts can lead to higher expected returns, the downside is that the negative impact of unexpected vacancies or repairs and the burden of debt will also grow by an order of magnitude.
The mental burden of carrying hundreds of millions of yen in debt while holding down a full-time job can erode your daily life and peace of mind more than you might imagine.
That is why, at first, considering low-priced, individual studio apartments that fit your means is a realistic option that allows you to limit your risk.
Through low-priced properties, you can gain small-scale experience in the practical cycle of finding tenants, renovation costs upon move-out, and managing rent payments.
By experiencing the series of operations with your own hands, you will acquire a “feel for being an investor” that cannot be obtained from books or online information alone.
Steadily accumulating small achievements is a solid step toward increasing your credibility with financial institutions and expanding your scale in a sustainable way.
Choosing a company to avoid being taken for a ride | The technique of choosing by “property and market sense” rather than by “company”
When choosing a real estate company, it is a very dangerous decision to base it solely on name recognition or the friendliness of the person in charge.
If you rely on a single company to introduce properties to you, you will be forced to choose from the narrow selection that the agent handles.
A wiser approach is not to look through agents, but to use portal sites to monitor the market yourself and find properties from there.
If you have a sense of the local market, you will be able to make judgments based on your own criteria, such as, ‘At this size and price in this area, it’s a good deal.’
Since properties with good conditions are snapped up by other buyers as soon as they hit the market, only those who have cultivated a sense of the market can make quick decisions.
Also, when looking at property documents, you must check not only the gross yield excluding expenses, but also the net yield and long-term repair plans after deducting management fees, repair reserve funds, and property taxes.
Especially in the case of condominium units, it is essential to know in advance whether there is a plan for the repair reserve fund to increase in stages in the future.
Even when meeting with agents, simply calmly stating that you are ‘comparing a wide range of properties, including those from other companies,’ is an effective self-defense measure to keep easy sales pitches in check.
Discarding ‘It seems good’ | The mental space to judge by numbers, not emotions
The biggest common denominator for those who end up regretting real estate investment is being swept away by intuition or the atmosphere of the moment and buying based on emotion.
If you make a decision just because ‘the sales representative was kind’ or ‘the loan was approved,’ you won’t be able to sell when the balance sheet no longer works, and you will end up in a dead end.
Unlike buying daily necessities, once you buy real estate, you cannot easily return it or let it go.
That is why the discipline of not touching subtle deals where you don’t know if you will gain or lose, and narrowing it down only to deals you can be convinced of with numerical evidence is more important than anything else.
There is no need to rush and sign a contract immediately.
The ‘preparation period’ itself, where you check new information on portal sites in your daily life and repeat numerical simulations, is already an important runway for breaking away from company dependence.
The time you spend looking at the world outside your company and examining options with your own head becomes a mental sanctuary that eases the sense of stagnation in your daily workplace.
‘Maybe I can do it too.’ Now that you can calmly compare options like that, I think it’s a great time to deepen your knowledge. In the ‘Side Hustle Practice Content “Zero-Aca”‘ that I am also involved in operating, you can learn the knowledge for company employees to take a step forward without strain, from basics to practice, for free. LINE registration is free, and after registering, you can watch over 100 lecture videos for free. There is no need to rush, so please take a look at your own pace. 👉
Check out ‘Side Hustle Practice Content “Zero-Aca”‘
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For a future not tied to a company, start with one book and checking the market
Everyday life as a company employee is busy, and it is by no means easy to secure hours of study time after returning home exhausted.
That is why you do not need to take sudden, major actions or push yourself by making unreasonable plans.
What is important is to incorporate just one small, sustainable habit into your daily routine.
For example, try picking up just one basic book on real estate or money that caught your interest this weekend.
Alternatively, try opening a portal site app during your commute and looking at property prices in areas you are interested in.
Beyond such small accumulations, a reliable sense of market value that cannot be swayed by the words of agents, and the confidence to make decisions on your own, will gradually be nurtured.
Solidifying the foundation known as knowledge without rushing should, as a result, lead to the safest path to expanding options that allow you to stand on equal footing with your company.
It is precisely because you have a foundation of knowledge that all options become reality.
Regardless of the side business or asset formation, nothing succeeds in the long term based solely on superficial techniques or information repeated from someone else.
To avoid being swept away by sweet-sounding words and to protect your own life and peace of mind, basic knowledge and a blueprint to correctly view the overall picture are absolutely necessary.
Only when you understand the mechanisms and can measure risks yourself do side businesses and investments change from a “frightening gamble” into a “reliable means to expand life’s options.”
To build a future where you can stand quietly on your own two feet without relying solely on your company, let’s start by building up reliable knowledge one step at a time.
[Side Business Practice Content ‘Zero-Aca’]
LINE registration is free. After registering, you can watch over 100 lecture videos for free.
The basic knowledge of real estate investment and the way of thinking about market values I shared today are just one of the options for creating a life that does not depend on a company.
If you feel anxious about relying only on your company salary and enduring unreasonable situations every day, please start by building a foundation of knowledge from a safe place.
You can learn side businesses that suit you, from basics to practice, for free. This is ‘Side Business Practice Content Zero-Aca,’ which I am also involved in operating.
Feel free to learn at your own pace, and if you feel it is not for you, you are welcome to close it at any time.
👉 Check out ‘Side Business Practice Content Zero-Aca’
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Hayato
