Tamio Bando is a keen advocate of providing reassurance to investors. Since his time at his previous employer Dualtap Co., Ltd., where he was a driving force in the company’s stock listing in 2016, Bando has been actively working as a professional in investment real estate. In 2018, Bando ventured out on his own and founded Post Lintel Co., Ltd. He is now vigorously developing his own business of offering superior-value investment real estate in Japan to Asia’s wealthy class.

―First, please tell us what your business is about.

We mainly offer, sell and manage real estate in Japan to investors in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and other Asian countries.
Our strength lies in our expertise in the business of scrutinizing global trends and then offering real estate in Japan to wealthy Asian investors.
Post Lintel handles a diverse range of real estate, from apartment buildings to offices and hotels. We've recently expanded our services to include selling pre-existing overseas real estate and interchanging it with real estate in Japan. Post Lintel offers customers a comprehensive range of services to meet all their needs.

―When did you enter the real estate industry?

After I graduated from junior high school in Japan, I went to the U.S. on my own at 16 years old and completed my studies at a high school there. I worked in a variety of jobs once I returned to Japan, and then I came across the real estate industry when I was 28. So my first foray into this industry was assisting at a real estate business started by an older friend in my hometown.
Initially I knew nothing about real estate, so he told me it was ok to just balance the books. So that’s how I helped him set up his business. In its first fiscal year, the company earned 120 million yen in sales and posted a gross profit of around 5 million yen. As the company had 15 to 16 employees, it wasn’t able to remain solvent with such a high deficit; so there was no choice but to dissolve it.
I was quite frustrated that the company was disbanded, as I felt I could have prevented its downfall had I known enough about running a real estate business. The fact there were so many employees who worked really hard to make the company a success made its ultimate failure, and myself not being able to prevent it, even more painful. I was keenly aware of my inability to do anything about the company’s demise, but at the same time I was determined to not let it end there.

―So, what happened after that?

I was still a novice when it came to the real estate business, but my time at the company had expanded my circle of industry contacts. So fortunately for me, many prominent real estate companies reached out to me with appealing offers to work with them.
All of the offers were for managerial level jobs and other positions of responsibility, and the salary was also quite generous. Nevertheless, since I felt was unable to assist my colleagues in the previous company, I couldn’t readily accept such good offers.
Around that time, I received another offer from the president of a newly emerging real estate company, which had only five employees then. But what he said to me stood out among the other offers.
He told me, “If you really have what it takes to work in real estate, then it’s up to you prove yourself and work your way to the top. I suppose you’re being approached now by many companies making lucrative offers. But just settling on one of them won’t really get you anywhere. If you really want to master the real estate business, I think it’s better to start from the bottom and work your way to the top.”
It was an “aha!” moment for me. So even though this was the smallest company with the least lucrative offer among the many I had received, I gladly and immediately accepted it. That was eleven years ago in 2007 – I can recall it fondly even now.