Since our founding in 2020, INA&Associates has moved forward under the banner of being a "jinzai investment company" — a company that invests in its people as its greatest asset. I want to share that philosophy, and the direction I believe the real estate industry as a whole needs to move in, with all of you.
Why is the real estate industry facing a moment of transformation right now?
In short: structural problems that have long defined this industry — outdated customs, multi-layered subcontracting, and asymmetries of information between the parties to a deal — are being dismantled by the advance of technology together with a genuine shift in social values.
Looking back on the years after I graduated from university and joined a real estate developer, working on condominium development, what stayed with me was watching, again and again, people working hard on the front lines go unrecognized and unrewarded for it. The determination to change that structural problem in the industry was what drove me to found INA&Associates in Osaka in February 2020.
Working from the founding vision of "building a platform where people who work hard are properly recognized for it," we have built a business that fuses real estate with information technology. Innovation in the real estate industry is something achieved on two wheels together: technology, and human capability.
The same structural complaint shows up in English-language real estate commentary under different labels — commissions and information split unevenly between agents and clients, a long chain of subcontractors between a property owner and the tradespeople actually doing the work, transaction processes that still run on fax machines and paper files in markets that consider themselves thoroughly digitized. The details differ by country, but the underlying imbalance, and the appetite for technology to correct it, is the same one driving this industry everywhere.
How will technology change the future of real estate transactions?
In short: AI and blockchain technology are dramatically increasing the transparency of transactions, opening a path out of the traditional "black box" that real estate has long been.
The traditional real estate transaction was something only a specialist could really understand, buried under asymmetric information and complicated procedures. Today, though, advances in technology have made it possible to raise the transparency of a transaction dramatically.
At INA, we are actively bringing the latest technology into property management as well, working to deliver services that are both efficient and highly transparent. Across the entire process — from finding tenants, through day-to-day management, to handling disputes — we have worked to minimize the burden on our clients, and as a result we've achieved both high occupancy rates and stronger profitability. We've substantially cut the time it takes to manage property data and prepare proposals, which in turn has let us present a greater number of properties, while also raising both customer satisfaction and our closing rate.
The same transformation is underway across US and UK real estate, where iBuyer platforms, blockchain-based title and escrow pilots, and AI-driven valuation tools are being pitched on the identical promise: stripping out the opacity that has traditionally let intermediaries capture value simply by knowing more than their clients did. Skepticism toward some of that hype is warranted in every market, but the direction of travel — toward transactions a customer can actually see through, start to finish — is a genuinely global one, not a Japan-specific trend.
Why is "jinzai" the true source of a company's value?
In short: however far technology advances, the essence of the real estate business remains connecting one person with another, which means human creativity and imagination only become more important, not less, as this era unfolds.
From my own experience, I've become convinced that the single most valuable asset a company holds is its people, treated as treasure. The ability, the passion, and the growth of every individual employee is what actually generates a company's competitiveness, and what allows it to deliver genuine value to society.
Here a bit of untranslatable Japanese wordplay is worth spelling out, since the distinction is central to how we think about our people. The ordinary Japanese word for "human resources" is written with two characters meaning "person" and "material" — much like the English phrase itself, treating people as a kind of input to be deployed. At INA, we deliberately swap that second character for a homophone meaning "treasure" instead. The word sounds identical spoken aloud, but written down it now reads as "people as treasure" rather than "people as material" — a distinction that exists only on the page, with no clean English equivalent. The swap is really a values statement: we choose to treat our employees as an irreplaceable asset the company is fortunate to hold, not an interchangeable resource to be consumed.
We describe our employees not with the ordinary word for human resources, but as "people who are treasure," and we've made cultivating that talent and creating space for it to flourish the center of how we run the company.
How is "trust" built and compounded in the real estate business?
In short: transparent information-sharing, sincere communication, and a consistent follow-through on responsibility are what build a solid, lasting relationship of trust with the customer.
Without trust between us and our customers, there is no such thing as a genuinely valuable business. We don't want to simply handle property transactions — we want to be a true partner who brings value to our customers' lives, and that intention is the foundation underneath everything we do. Real estate brokers in English-speaking markets describe the exact same imperative through their own professional codes — the fiduciary duty a buyer's agent owes a client in the US, for instance — but the underlying idea, that the relationship has to outlast any single transaction to mean anything, is identical.
What does the path to becoming a visionary company look like?
In short: we are aiming to become a company that endures and keeps growing over the long term, weathering the changes of the era under a clear and consistent philosophy.
A "visionary company" is not simply a company that grows — it's a company that keeps developing over the long term, weathering the changes each era brings. The vision we've set for ourselves is to become "the world's No. 1 jinzai investment company." We want to support the growth of our employees and to be a company that brings genuine value to the life of everyone connected to it.
What kind of future is INA working toward?
In short: by weaving together five areas — real estate brokerage, property management, technology, recruiting for real estate professionals, and consulting — into a single, organic whole, we are expanding the business on the strength of that combined capability.
Five years since our founding, we've opened an office in Tokyo alongside our head office in Osaka. We've steadily expanded our reach — launching Town Map, rolling out "INA WEB," a website-building service for real estate companies, and entering the residential leasing management business in earnest in 2021. Starting in 2024 we also launched a recruiting business focused specifically on the real estate industry, matching candidates using a combination of know-how built on the ground in real estate and data-analysis techniques.
What will the real estate business need going forward?
In short: rather than simply handling property transactions, what's needed is genuine value as a "partner" who supports a customer in realizing the future they want.
In our real estate brokerage business in particular, what we value most is the relationship of trust we build with our customers. We propose the best-suited property by weighing both a customer's lifestyle and the asset value involved, while keeping a fair, neutral stance as we work out the best solution. Why INA uses the word "jinzai" — people as treasure — is a philosophy that runs through every one of our services.
The future we're building together
Going forward, we will keep pursuing our vision of becoming "the world's No. 1 jinzai investment company," treating people as a company's true treasure and putting our energy into drawing out their full potential.
With a mission of using the power of technology to tear down old boundaries and build a world where every individual's talent is fairly recognized, we will keep taking on new challenges. Together with everyone who shares this philosophy, we want to build a new shape for the real estate industry.
Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
What kind of company is INA&Associates?
Founded in Osaka in 2020, we're a company at the intersection of real estate and information technology. We operate across five areas — real estate brokerage, property management, technology, recruiting for real estate professionals, and consulting — with the goal of becoming "the world's No. 1 jinzai investment company."
How is technology actually being used in the real estate industry?
It spans a wide range: AI-driven property matching, online contract systems, digital marketing, and more. At INA, we've introduced technology across the entire process, from finding tenants through to day-to-day management, achieving both greater efficiency and greater transparency.
What's the difference between INA's "jinzai" and the ordinary Japanese word for human resources?
Both are pronounced the same way, "jinzai," but they're written with different characters. The ordinary word is written with a character meaning "material," treating people as a form of labor. INA's version swaps in a homophonous character that means "treasure" instead, reflecting the idea of treating each individual employee as an irreplaceable asset rather than an interchangeable input. At INA, we run the company on the conviction that our people, in this sense, are the true source of our corporate value.
