PROPERTY
HOUSING JAPAN at 20
We talk to the men who started it all Photos & Interview: Alfie Goodrich
With a diverse and dynamic portfolio of interests that includes rental, sales, new-build, short-term let, hotels and asset management, Housing Japan has become a veritable one-stop-shop for all things related to property. We talk to co-founders Joe Rigby and Mitsuo Hashimoto about the company. Alfie Goodrich (AG): So, how did it all start? Joe Rigby ( JR): Well, I was working in banking at the time and I’d just relocated back to Japan from Hong Kong and was looking for an apartment. I met up with an agent, who took me around a few properties, and they did such a terrible job. I came back to my desk and was complaining to the guy sitting next to me, who was also one of the original founders, and asked him, ‘We can do better than this, right?’. He said we should meet his friend, Hashimoto-san, and talk about it. That was how it all started. Hashimoto-san and I met and, as the old cliché goes, the rest is history.
AG: Hashimoto-san, what were you doing at that time? Mitsuo Hashimoto (MH): I was working in an expat rental company, specialising in residential for expats. Joe and I met, and I was then able to help him and a couple of his colleagues find properties. Joe and I talked about some ideas. It all started pretty quickly after that. AG: Joe, how quickly were you able to realise your goal? JR: Well, we started out as a very small business. The thing that enabled us to quickly grab a foothold in the market—a mature market with a lot of established competitors—was that we were the first company to set up a website with information about Japanese real estate in English. No one had done that before. It seems almost trivial now but, back in 2000, when web users were just graduating from Netscape, it was a big thing. AG: In the beginning it was as simple as that?
JR: Well, sure, it sounds simple now, but that was a big leap then. That’s what often characterises the best ideas: they’re simple. From the first day we put information on Tokyo apartments on the web in English, the phone started ringing. Because we were that crucial step ahead, we had a business overnight. In the way we do things, to this day, we try to deliver to people the best information, in the best format we can. That was the impetus for us 20 years ago, too, and has been an edge for our business throughout these 20 years. AG: Moving on from these important foundations, can you briefly explain the evolution of Housing Japan? JR: We started as a leasing company but soon found many of our clients were living in Japan on a long-term basis and wanted to buy property. So, we were very early in the market with expat sales, introducing Tokyo properties and helping people purchase them. There was virtually no one doing that at the time. Then, as people purchased
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