Sight Unseen Doesn’t Have to Mean You're Guessing

Buying a house you've never seen sounds like a terrible idea.

And sometimes, it probably is.

But I think we're mixing up two different things when we call every sight-unseen purchase a blind purchase.

Jessie and Tom bought their house in Funabashi from Texas before either of them had ever stood inside it. When they finally arrived, they told us it was actually better than they expected.

That made me rethink what “sight unseen” actually means. 

They didn't somehow eliminate the uncertainty of buying from the other side of the world. They found ways to deal with it.

Seeing the house is only one kind of information

If you're standing in a house yourself, you can learn a lot very quickly.

You can see how big the rooms actually feel. You can look closely at the condition. You can hear the street outside. You can notice things that don't show up particularly well in listing photos.

That's useful.

But being there doesn't answer everything either.

You still need to understand the documents, the condition of things you can't easily inspect, the land, the transaction, the surrounding area and whether the house actually makes sense for the life you're planning to have there.

So when you're buying remotely, the question I'd ask is:

What would I normally learn by being there, and how am I going to learn it if I'm not?

That is a much better question than simply asking whether buying sight unseen is “safe.”

Jessie and Tom didn't know everything they wanted at the beginning

This was another thing I found interesting.

Their search got more specific as they went.

They looked at properties and gradually worked out what actually mattered to them: enough space, reasonable access to a station, everyday convenience, a neighborhood they liked, and a house that was ready to use.

That sounds obvious, but I see buyers make the opposite assumption all the time. They think they need to arrive with a perfect list of requirements before they start looking.

Sometimes you don't know yet.

Looking at ten houses you don't want can teach you something about the eleventh.

For Jessie and Tom, the search eventually pointed them toward Funabashi. They wanted something quieter than central Tokyo, but they didn't want to give up practical access to Tokyo, airports and the things their family wanted to do.

The location was part of the answer. The house was another part.

If you're not there, whose eyes are you using?

This is probably the most practical part of buying remotely.

Jessie and Tom had local knowledge from Kei, who would actually be living in the house. They also used property information, recommendations and deeper vetting as their search became more focused.

And they still had moments where the distance felt very real.

Jessie talked about how nerve-racking that first international money transfer was. There's something about sending a large amount of money across the world for a house you've never physically entered that makes you look at the screen twice.

I think that's healthy.

Trust shouldn't make you ask fewer questions. It should make it easier to get the right questions answered.

If you're considering buying from overseas, I'd want to know exactly what your support is doing for you.

What is being checked?

What is being documented?

Who is providing local knowledge?

Who is coordinating communication and paperwork?

And which parts still need to be handled by the appropriate licensed professionals?

You don't need somebody to tell you, “Don't worry about it.”

You need enough reliable information to make a decision you understand.

That's essentially what Jessie and Tom did. They didn't know everything from Texas. They didn't need to.

Then they finally walked through the door

And this is where the story gets nice.

The house had already been renovated before they bought it. It looked good in the information they had seen. But when they finally arrived, it was better than expected.

Now they're gardening.

They're cooking.

They're talking about family coming to stay.

They're sitting around the house instead of feeling like they have to go somewhere every time they're in Japan.

At that point, the question isn't really whether they successfully bought a property from Texas.

They arrived and started living there.

That's a useful test for any remote purchase. Can you gather enough reliable information to make the decision, and does the property actually support the life you want once you get there?

The goal isn't to eliminate uncertainty. You can't.

It's to know what you're uncertain about and have a way of dealing with it.

If you're considering buying in Japan from overseas, that's one of the reasons we built Akiya Assist. Our team can help narrow the search, coordinate viewings, translation and paperwork, and guide buyers through the process alongside licensed local professionals.

And if you want to see the house that started this whole discussion, we've got the full walkthrough and Jessie and Tom's story on the channel.

[WATCH Jessie and Tom in Funabashi]