Born in Utah, Raised in Yokohama

・Movie Appreciation (Favorites are Action and Suspense)
・Wine Appreciation (Partial to New World varietals)
・Watching Martial Arts (As a youngster practiced Kyokushin-style Karate)
・Firearms Shooting (Was on the High School Rifle Team in the U.S.)

・Licensed Japanese Real Estate Broker
・Licensed Securities Sales Representative – Class 2
・Certified International Property Specialist (CIPS)
・International Realtor

・Corporate Planning Office and Global Real Estate Business

・Overseas Investment Properties (Both Inbound and Outbound Needs)

Hello! My name is Richard Nash. While I was born in the U.S., I spent a lot of time in Asia. In all, I have lived and worked in the U.S. for 17 years, 3 years in Hong Kong, 10 years in Shanghai, and about 35 years in Japan. I also received education in both the U.S. and Japan, so I attained native-level fluency in both speaking and writing English and Japanese. I was able to elevate my Japanese to the point that I could pass the Japanese Real Estate Broker’s Exam on the first try.

I became a REDS team member when I joined on January 1, 2021 to become the head of the Corporate Planning Office and the firm’s Global Real Estate specialist. One may wonder why a foreigner like myself would be chosen for these positions. I believe it was because, as the world globalized, the real estate markets also became globalized. The time had come to view the global real estate markets as on single market instead of thinking in terms of domestic and overseas markets separately.

As climate change and geopolitical factors increasingly make the world unstable, real estate investment dynamics will become more global. From an asset management point of view at the individual level, the time has come to diversify the real estate asset class portion of one’s portfolio. This becomes evident at once when we see the sharp increase in inbound business into Japan and, also, demand for outbound investments from Japan. I firmly believe that only real estate firms that can answer these demands will survive and prosper in the future.

REDS’ clients who had purchased a home will one day become a seller. According to one statistical study, by the year 2050, Japan’s population will have decreased from the current 126.5 million to about 100 million people, due to declining birth rate and rapidly aging populace. In 80 years, the population is estimated to be 1/2 of what it is now. Thus, it can be reasonably expected that demand for housing will likewise gradually lessen. With demand coming only from within Japan, the likelihood of housing prices weakening will rise, thus eroding the value of one of your most important personal assets, called “home”.

Therefore, to protect the value of our clients’ home, REDS will need to be able to secure sources of inbound demand, i.e. overseas buyers. In that regard, we plan on setting up a referral system that would allow us to take advantage of both inbound and outbound business demand.

We have another big objective. It is said that the U.S. real estate market is the most advanced of all real estate markets in the world. Up to now, it has been said that ideas, innovation, and business models that are prevalent in the US will reach Japan 10 to 20 years late. Recently, however, owing to digital transformation (DX), it is now being said that they will come to Japan’s shores only about 3 ~ 5 years late.

When compared with the U.S., one will immediately find that Japan’s real estate brokerage industry is terribly anachronistic. One example is that it is only recently, as the coronavirus pandemic made remote work necessary, that Japan has started talking about digital stamps and signatures. In the U.S., a major company in this digital space, called Docusign, has begun providing its digital signature service from about 10 years ago.

By employing the most advanced business models, ideas, and innovations in the U.S. as our guidelines, and by offering top-class and trustworthy services at reasonable cost through our bespoke system, REDS intends to become a disruptor in Japan’s anachronistic real estate brokerage industry and break down its outdated business customs and practices.

Let us look at an example. Recently, I have noticed that many real estate salespersons, even those who are unlicensed, are starting to call themselves “agents”. In my humble opinion, I believe the word “agent” is being taken out of context. Perhaps, they are innocently using it because the word sounds cool in its katakana translation and pronunciation, but, as many of you may already know, to be a real estate agent in the U.S. you first need to be licensed.

Moreover, in the U.S. there is something called the Law of Agency, whereby, among other responsibilities and obligations, an agent is expected to exercise the all-important fiduciary duties of care and loyalty. In simplest terms, it means that the agent is legally obligated to put the client’s needs first and foremost, without regard to his or her own personal interests or benefit, the ultimate definition of genuine customer-first services. In the U.S. breach of fiduciary duty is a very serious matter that can result in civil liability damages and even revocation of one’s real estate license.

Japan’s Financial Services Agency has already introduced this vital legal concept to Japan’s financial services industry. Regrettably, this concept has not yet been considered important enough within Japan’s real estate brokerage industry. Maybe, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (“MLIT”), the overseer of Japan’s real estate brokerage industry, is still mulling over it but REDS is not going to be waiting for MLIT’s official directive. We will be including the concept of fiduciary duty as part of our Best Practices guidelines.

We are certain that many of our competitors will feel threatened by REDS’ customer-oriented system. We expect them to denigrate and deprecate us by alluding to our system as providing “cheap but substandard” service. REDS will never succumb to such disparagement.

Our agents, who are all licensed, possess abundance of knowledge and experience based on their many years in the industry, and understand the true meaning of fiduciary duty, will always act as Trusted Advisors to our clients.

REDS’ goal is to become the #1 Boutique Real Estate Brokerage Firm in Japan, staffed by an elite team of credentialed professionals who continually strive to attain excellence by providing exemplary service of the highest degree to our clients.

We will appreciate your continued interest in, and support of, REDS. Thank you!