The past two weeks had the Annoura Family all over everywhere! Zach is still in Japan (since June 3) and will stay there all the way until August 7. His big news is that he participated in Kodomo Yamakasa, a huge festival in Fukuoka that dates back 770+ years. Wow, very old traditional festival! The peak of the festival takes place on July 15 at 4:59am but all the preparations and practice begin on July 1. The kids version of the festival happens in early July. Zach was very excited to be a leader in his class and he got a good spot carrying the ‘yama’. Meanwhile, Koh flew to Japan on July 3 and will stay in Fukuoka with Zach until they both return together. Koh also participated in Yamakasa and one special thing about this time, is that he got to ride at the top of the ‘yama’ on one of the practice rounds with his family friend Kuchiishi san and Zach! For some extra info on the Hakata Gion Yamakasa festival, see here: https://www.fukuoka-now.com/en/yamakasa/
Joe is still on the west coast, staying at Susan’s cousin’s house in Thousand Oaks and doing his internship with Eugene’s investment banking company. He has made new friends and enjoys his side hustle of buying and selling unique treasurers he finds at thrift stores. He has become quite the specialist for vintage t-shirts, it seems! On the other side of the United States, Ty has made it through his first two weeks of ‘plebe summer’ at the U.S. Naval Academy. Susan was super happy to receive one letter from him and one phone call on July 7 for 30 minutes. Ty spoke of his rigid schedule, the abundant food, and several of the ups and downs he has endured. We are so proud of his dedication and motivation to hang in there and give it his best. In exciting news, Ty spoke to the wrestling coach, who said he could walk on to the wrestling team! We know this make Ty happiest of all.
With Hurricane Beryl hitting Houston last week, Annoura Realty was super busy helping everyone get their homes cleaned up and repaired. Our company specializes not only in helping expat relocate to Houston, but we also help Japanese investors buy properties in Houston. For those investors who buy through us, Annoura Realty offers property management services. Currently in our portfolio, we handle about 85 properties, so when a storm hits, we are super super busy! Hurricane Beryl brought along very strong winds, which caused many wood fences to fall and lots and lots of tree branches (and entire trees!) to fall. All homes required serious yard clean up from all the tree debris.
On a positive note, Team Annoura welcomed many newcomers to Houston in the first two weeks of July. One of our Daikin expats Mr. Homma, moved in successfully to his Memorial area highrise, while his colleague Mr. Yagi opted to be closer to the Daikin headquarters in Waller and chose a brand new apartment in Cypress. On the same day, NOEX expat Mr. Takemoto opted for the suburbs for the excellent Katy area schools, and Dr. Ishigami who will work at Texas Children’s Hospital moved in smoothly to his Medical Center area highrise. Welcome to Houston, everyone!
July 1, Susan had two sales closings: one was Nick Davis’ downtown area condo, who came out with a full price offer, and one was Ryan and Elaine’s amazing two generation Village home in Towne Lake, who came out with an incredible gain after a wise purchase during COVID. On the newcomer side, Susan toured a new intern with NAIND (Nihon Shokubai), who smartly chose a trendy apartment in Clear Lake. How exciting that he will get to spend the next year at the NAI Houston office! Mariko succeeded in finding a nice home for the 6 member Osada family. We wish Dr. Osada a successful experience working at Baylor College of Medicine.
Susan’s personal rental in Clear Lake looks like it will next be rented to our newest Kaneka expat, Mr. Jeong and his family, as the current tenant has obtained their PhD and is moving Colorado at the end of the month. We wish Cody and Megan all the best! Also on the newcomer side of things, we welcome a new Tokio Marine member and a new Benichu expat. Both toured last week with Susan and opted for spacious units in the same Memorial area, convenient to work and to the Japanese supermarket. Friday we almost celebrated the closing of Vivian and Patrick’s home in Marvida. I say almost because the mobile notary accidentally had them sign on front and back, which the lender said no to! Take two was Saturday, so closing and funding is expected on Monday (today), as they drive their way from Connecticut to Houston and should be here by Tuesday. Special thanks to Perry Homes sales consultant Janet Nicholson for helping us every step of the way! Jenn Tran, thank you so much for the referral!
The past 3 days we had four more move ins. First, we offer a warm welcome to Mr. Maruyama of Mitsui. He moved into his Memorial area apartment on Saturday and his family will soon follow! Speaking of families coming, Mr. Mizuta has his family coming soon, so he opted to move into a neighboring apartment with a much larger footprint. Finally, Mr. Takehara moves into his new residence today as well. Congratulations to all of our newcomers!
In other big Annoura Realty news, long time agent Nan Feng has left Annoura Realty Group to join a team that will help her grow her commercial real estate endeavors. We will miss Nan but wish her all the best and much success on her new team.
On the other spectrum, we are super excited to welcome a new member to the team, Joanna King Mitchell! Joanna and Susan went to high school together and Joanna is now a transaction manager for several Houston agents. Joanna will help all of our new expats after they have chosen their homes. There are still many tasks to go: getting electricity, water, gas, renter’s insurance, paying deposits and first month rent, and getting the keys. Joanna will help everyone coordinate all of these tasks from contract to close, and we are super excited to have her join Annoura Realty Group!
All newcomer clients of Annoura Realty Group receive a special gift from us when they move in to their new homes. We call it a Welcome Bucket, or a SHIN SEIKATSU STARTER bucket, which is meant to help people start their new lives. Inside the Texas branded bucket, which we hope the bucket is also useful to people, is everything we think people will need until they can go shopping and buy things on their own. Some of the things are: dishwasher detergent, toilet paper, paper towel, washing machine detergent, dish washing soap, a sponge, body wash, shampoo, conditioner, even paper plates, forks, spoons, and knives. We also added a few snacks such as chips, gum, water, beer (Texas Shiner Bock beer, of course), juice, and instant ramen. We partner up with our favorite lender, Laura Haines, who we highly recommend if people go from renting to actually buying a home in the future and need to get a home loan. Last week, we made a fresh batch of Welcome Buckets, so we are ready for the next wave of clients! If you know of any newcomers or colleagues newly assigned to Houston, please refer them to us. We love helping expats find their homes! And don’t forget to tell them to tell us that you referred them!
At the time of writing this newsletter, I am flying in the sky heading back to Houston from Annapolis. For tomorrow, Mariko has helped me make 6 appointments for Ayumi san, and Nakamura san just WhatsApp’ed me from Japan to go look at a possible investment home in Clear Lake. We have two closings scheduled for Monday (the day this newsletter goes out) so hopefully while you are reading this, both have closed and we can say congratulations to Ryan & Elaine as well as to Nick (and Katie). Hitting the market was our agent Shantel’s big land listing, over 2 acres of waterfront on the north shore of Clear Lake. This parcel has utilities running to it and will be perfect for 1, 2, or even 3 homes to be built on them. Our past client Jenn T referred one of her friends to us, Vivian from Connecticut. Last week we helped negotiate the terms of Vivian’s brand new Perry home and look forward to the builder orientation this week. Our newest NOEX expat is slated to take our listing in Katy on July 1, our newest Daikin expat is expected to move in to his Memorial highrise today as well. Mariko is working on two move-ins today too, so I would say that July 1 is going to be one super duper busy day! We have several new listings hitting the market today and in the coming days. One is a rental in Bay Glen, a quick 2 minute walk to Ward Elementary. It is tenant occupied until the end of July but will be available before school starts. We have three homes that will coming up for sale soon, one on Sun Harbor, one on LaCabana, and one on Castle. All will begin make ready as soon as the tenants finish up their leases and vacate. With the shortage of homes for sale under $350,000, many of our investors are seeing good opportunities to sell. Several of our tenants renewed their leases last week, while several put in their notice to vacate. The coming days and weeks will be very busy at Annoura Realty as we make ready many of the homes in our portfolio to either re-lease or list for sale. Happy to report that Penrice had a successful yard makeover and several AC units at many of our rentals broke but were repaired over the past couple of weeks. On a side note, Annoura Realty could like to send out a warm welcome to Takemoto san, Ogura san, Homma san, Yagi san, and Ueda san, our newest expat clients to Houston!
Our second son Ty entered the U.S. Naval Academy on June 27, 2024. This day is called “I-Day” which is short for Induction Day. People who attend the Academy are called ‘midshipmen’ and first year midshipmen are called ‘plebes’. The Plebes begin their life at the Academy on I-Day, when their 7 weeks of hard training begins. They call this “Plebe Summer”. After Ty checked in at 7:15am, he turned in mountains of paperwork, got his hair buzzed off, was issued all his gear and uniforms and shoes, got fitted for glasses, and was assigned his dorm room inside the mighty Bancroft Hall. Bancroft Hall is a French designed dormitory, the largest in the world, and houses all 4,400 midshipmen. It has nearly 5 miles worth of hallways inside! Koh and Susan attended some tours, a parents briefing, a parents picnic, and a church service until the formal swearing in ceremony at 6pm. After the ceremony, we were able to see Ty in uniform for about 30 minutes before he had to report back to Bancroft Hall, where all 1,187 plebes marched back in and the two big wooden doors were slammed shut (according to tradition). The Class of 2028 had 15,146 applicants and this year’s class size was 1,170 + 17 International. 69% are male and 31% are female. Ty will get two phone calls to us in the next 6 weeks and we will get to see him during Plebe Parents Weekend, August 9-11. Until then, we will write him letters and pray that all goes well for him and his new classmates!
