Softball Team Izakaya Wa is gearing up for this year’s JBAH (Japan Business Association of Houston) softball tournament! We had our New Year’s party at of course, Izakaya Wa, on January 21. It is always fun to see our teammates and to talk about our goals for the year. Last year, our team came in 3rd place and this year, we are hoping to do even better! We have several kids that are growing up and getting better, and we have several veterans that are getting older year by year (like me). It will be interesting to see how we do! Team Izakaya Wa won 1st place in the recent Clear Lake Cup and it was our little ones that stole the show. Rumor is for the first time, we may be having our softball tournament on a day other than Easter. I have secretly felt so bad for our family having to miss Easter Sunday service at church every year because of this softball tournament. Will be great if they put it on a different weekend for a change. Annoura Realty Group is happy to be a jersey sponsor for Team Izakaya Wa!
The Houston Rodeo is one of my favorite events in Houston. It’s like a huge festival for the whole city and it continues for 3 whole weeks. If you have never been to the rodeo, you must go check it out at least once! Beware that weekday and weekends, the rodeo starts at differnet times. Weekday rodeos start at 6:45pm. The entertainer takes the stage at approximately 8:45 p.m. NRG Stadium gates open at 6 p.m. Weekend rodeos start at 3:45 p.m. The entertainer takes the stage at approximately 5:45 p.m. NRG Stadium gates open at 3 p.m. But, you can get onto the grounds much earlier and I recommend that you do! On the grounds is a huge carnival where the parking lot normally is, and inside Reliant Center (next to Reliant Stadium) has lots of shopping and many kinds of animals. There is also a Champions Wine Garden with several live music stages. One of my favorite things to do is to buy a bottle of wine on a beautiful day, sit with friends, and listen to the live music! And now…I hope you are reading closely! Annoura Realty Group is giving away a pair of tickets to the concert on March 18 for Brad Paisley. That is an $80 face value, and even more if you try to go online now to get them! If you would like to go to the rodeo with this free pair of tickets, please respond to this article below! We will do a drawing at the end of this month and announce the winner in the first February newsletter! This is your final chance!
This year, the rodeo will begin on Feb 28 and will go until March 19. The World Champion BBQ Contest will be the previous weekend, from Feb 23-25 and Good News….The team from Japan, BBQ Shogun, has been invited back to compete!
The United State Postal Service is raising prices again on stamps. In fact, sorry to say this, but they are planning on raising it TWICE a year! Effective last week, the price of a first-class stamp went from 60 cents to 63 cents. The Postal Regulatory Commission said the 4.2% increase was to offset the rise in inflation. International letters and postcards went from $1.40 to $1.45, and the price to send a domestic postcard increased from 45 to 48 cents. The Postal Service says to expect increases twice a year going forward, in January and in July. As of 2021, USPS is expected to be $160 billion in debt for the next 10 years…Arara. People holding Forever Stamps can still use them, but people buying new Forever Stamps will see prices go up to 63 cents.
Two weeks into the new year and things are really picking up for Annoura Realty Group. Unfortunately, the team lost Fayth Lovejoy who had some personal issues and decided to put her real estate career on hold for now. But fortunately, Susan and Koh’s eldest son Joe PASSED his real estate exam last week and is now a licensed realtor for Annoura Realty Group! Joe will predominantly focus on apartment locating in Austin, where he lives. But, this summer when he comes home, he will be put into our riorous training program and will start to learn the family business. In the past couple of weeks, we welcomed three new Mitsui expats. Mik Ebisu took the lead and is working on helping them find housing. We also are helping one new doctor find housing in the Med Center, one new Mitsubishi Corporation expat, a new Kuraray expat, and we were asked to put up two new listings in the near future. Another exciting bit of news is the possibility of a new Japanese company now considering to open a branch in Houston! This tech based company is a start up company in Japan backed by Itochu. They went from 4 employees to 60 employees last year and have great potential for their product in the fields of bio science, building management, and manufacturing (robotics). Susan met them while on her Trade Mission Trip to Tokyo back in October. Over the months, she kept in touch through this newsletter, and last week, the CEO and two project managers came to Houston to visit after being exhibitors at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Susan and Mariko brought them to the Greater Houston Partnership for meetings, then to City Hall to meet several of the Trade Mission entourage, then they toured all over Houston to give themselves an idea of what it would be like if they opened a branch of their company here. We have our fingers crossed that we will see them again soon. With Houston being the 4th largest city, having the world’s largest medical center, and having manufacturing giants like Daikin, we think this company would be a good fit!
It is always good to know about possible real estate investment opportunities abroad. In 2020, we actually almost bought a small property in Belize, but pulled out when COVID hit, afraid tourism would freeze. When I travel to conventions, I often hear from Mexican developers building lucrative turnkey properties in Playa Del Carmen or Tulum. I have actually been wanting to go to the Riviera Maya area to have a look myself. There is a place called Isla de Mujeres that I heard is really nice and could be a good place to have an investment property. Well, these past 4 days I was invited to go Roatan, Honduras to check out a real estate opportunity on that island. I have never been to Roatan nor Honduras and did not know what to expect. I invited one of my favorite investors to join me so that we could both listen to the special tax incentives of this project. Interestingly, the amenities have all been built already: a golf course, several swimming pools, a private beach, fitness center (now being remodeled, so my excuse for not working out during this trip…haha), even two restaurants overlooking the Carribean Sea. The area is called Pristine Bay and the place we stayed at was called Las Verandas Hotel & Villas, which is completed and very nice. The new project will be next to the hotel and will be individually owned condominiums. People can buy them and rent them or of course they can buy them and live in them. The special location of Pristine Bay allows investors to avoid capital gains tax when they sell, and it also only taxes them on the small fraction of the land they own (there is no property tax on the improvement above).
Apparently, Roatan is a scuba diver’s paradise and while we were there, we checked out the golf course, kayaking, and snorkeling. The water was beautiful and the people we met were all very friendly. Pristine Bay is a project that I will be watching over the next few months. Many thanks to Holly Fitzgerald for being our hostess while on the island and to my colleague Ed Eakin for the invitation to learn about this development.
