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The story
It has come to light that 1,191 investors in the real estate investment product “Minna de Ooyasan” (“Everyone’s Landlord”) are moving forward with a mass lawsuit demanding cancellations and refunds. A man in his 70s from the Kanto region poured his retirement savings into the scheme and says, “Was I a fool? Me?” The 5ch thread reacting to the report saw a clash between self-responsibility arguments (“there’s no such thing as guaranteed principal in investing”) and doubts about the product itself (“promising a 7% annual return was suspicious from the start”), with the discussion spilling over into why people convince themselves “surely I’ll be the exception.”
He thought he was buying peace of mind for his old age. He’d hoped it would help make ends meet, even just a little. But now past seventy, the man laughs weakly: “Was I a fool? Me?”
Over the real estate investment product “Minna de Ooyasan,” 1,191 investors are set to soon file a mass lawsuit demanding cancellations and refunds.
A man in his 70s living in the Kanto region filed his own suit in September, ahead of this mass action. Whether the retirement funds he sank into it will ever come back weighs on him constantly.
Source: mainichi.jp / Original article here
What people said
'guaranteed principal' in investing
is like a mugger pointing a knife at you and saying 'don't worry, I definitely won't stab you.'
Use some common sense, people.
He threw his money away lol lol lol lol
Real estate agents → land flippers
Insurance companies → gambling bookies
You're not going to make money.
It's not like this was a tip from some friend you trust.
You should've clocked it as a scam right there.
For an ordinary person who isn't a billionaire, your 70s are the time to cash out investments,
not the time to start new ones.
That's just luck.
Prices can crash hard too, you know.
Wait, you bought a condo?
Long-term interest rates are about to climb — isn't that going to hurt? Genuine question, not a jab.
'There's no such thing as guaranteed principal in investing.'
Just knowing that much is enough to keep you out of trouble.
Real estate's headed for a brutal crash from here.
If anything, it's precisely because people know the risk
that they convince themselves they'll be the exception.
And people seriously believed that?
They rationalize it as 'a deal this good is coming to me because I'm a big shot,'
and that's exactly how they get taken for a ride.
Same logic behind female celebrities falling hard for host club guys (male hosts paid to entertain women at nightclubs).
People whose 40s landed right at the bubble's peak took the loss and are already dead.
My dad bought up a bunch of units and sold off about half as part of his end-of-life planning — every single one got huge interest and turned a profit.
I'm using that inheritance as my retirement fund.
Ah, so it really was the right time to sell.
People were suspicious of it from the moment the very first offering opened.
But then again, if you don't get in early you don't profit — same with Bitcoin, way too late to cash in on that now.
He could've held back half instead of going all in.
Background and Key Points of This Story
“Minna de Ooyasan” (“Everyone’s Landlord”) has been marketed as a fractional real estate investment product promising roughly 7% annual returns, but as an investment, there was never any real guarantee on principal or yield to begin with. What makes this case notable is its scale — 1,191 investors banding together for a mass lawsuit seeking refunds and cancellations — underscoring just how widespread the fallout has been. Opinion in the thread split between blaming investors for not spotting an unrealistically high yield, and blaming the product’s design and how it was sold. Behavioral economics has shown that the ‘surely I’ll be the exception’ mindset isn’t limited to the elderly and can affect anyone, meaning a simple self-responsibility argument doesn’t tell the whole story. What happens with the lawsuit, or any prospect of refunds, remains unclear from current reporting.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello!Project board) thread ‘‘Minna de Ooyasan’ Investors: “Was I a Fool? Me?”‘.
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