Japan's modern nomads, the lifeblood of its flow

This series follows Dentsu Inc. 'Company Design' team as they uncover the secrets behind vibrant companies with 'originality.' In the ninth installment, we delve into the innovative business of 'ADDress,' which redefines life itself through its subscription-based housing service utilizing vacant homes.

I saw the movie "Nomadland." It depicts the pathos, loneliness, and freedom of people drifting across the American continent in trailer homes. It was a fine work that questioned the concept of home. Around the same time I saw that film, I learned about ADDress, run by President Takashi Sabetto, whom we interviewed this time. This service, which offers unlimited living anywhere in Japan, strikes me as one answer to the "freedom to roam" we've gained through remote work. It's not about abandoning local communities, but rather a paradigm shift toward embracing multiple connections. Throughout the interview, keywords for Japan's future—mobility, home, technology, community—are discussed not as pipe dreams, but with tangible substance and real-world application. President Sabetto's vision: "People's movement is the nation's bloodstream." I highly recommend reading it.

Written by: Hideaki Morohashi (Dentsu Inc. BXCC)
 

ADDress: Founded November 2018. Proposing multi-location shared housing with the vision: "A way of life where you have multiple places you call home." This business, which supports not just how people live but how they live their lives, is attracting significant attention.

 

A Way of Life Where You Have Multiple Home Bases

ADDress's business model is "unlimited living anywhere in Japan for a flat monthly fee of ¥40,000." How does this differ from previous "multi-location living" concepts? The difference lies in its core concept, essentially a multi-location shared house. While shared houses often carry the image of a stopgap measure devised for living in high-rent urban areas, President Sabetto's proposal is not that. Think of it as the solution to the equation: Housing × Community × Technology.

The key point is "sharing." "When you hear 'sharing your living space,' it might conjure a cramped image of having to do it out of necessity for survival. But think about sharing your life – and doing so with diverse people and places across the country. Doesn't that sound exciting?"

There's another key point. You have multiple places you call home. That much is clear. But what follows in President Sabetsudo's message is that it's not just "a way of living," but "a way of life." This idea of "sharing a way of life" was the biggest discovery from this interview. And it's not just people you share with. Regions, municipalities, companies, schools, and even history, climate, culture—everything is a potential target for the "sharing" proposed by President Sabetto.
 

Joined Gaiax in 2000. After working in business development, established the Sharing Economy Association in 2016 and became its Secretary General. In 2017, appointed as Sharing Economy Evangelist by the Cabinet Secretariat's IT Strategy Office. Serves on committees concerning the sharing economy for the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Founded Address in 2018, a flat-rate multi-location co-living service, and became its President and CEO. Appointed as Representative of the Sharing City Promotion Council in 2020.

The slogan is "Nationwide Revitalization."

President Sabetto elaborated on the meaning of "Nationwide Revitalization" in simpler terms. "The key point isn't 'city or countryside,' but rather living in 'both city and countryside.' Put another way, it means creating decentralized communities nationwide to share the population between urban and rural areas."

Coming from a rural area myself, I understand this well. Regional revitalization sometimes treats cities as the enemy. How to prevent people from moving to cities. How to get them to return. ADDress flips that concept on its head.
Instead of cities and rural areas competing over limited resources and people, it creates a win-win relationship. Digital technology is leveraged to achieve this. Isn't this an incredibly dream-expanding idea?
 

BBQ scene in Futakotamagawa

The hub is the figure known as the Yamori

"The hub of the multi-location shared housing provided by ADDress is the Yamori. Yamori are not just landlords or managers. They are concierge-like figures who support daily life in the community. Currently, our company has owner contracts for about 150 houses and lodging facilities nationwide. Alongside these owner contracts, we recruit Yamori, and we've already received over 400 applications for this role."

For example, "clubs" like the Sauna Club, Relaxed Yoga Club, and Sake Club. Or "ADDress Alumni" programs supporting local employment opportunities unique to each area, such as agriculture, forestry, and traditional crafts. The Yamori serve as the hub for these activities, primarily initiated by members. They enrich the soft aspects accompanying the housing hardware by blending digital solutions with human touch. This is the community ADDress creates. "In fact, 80% of our members who have signed a lease agreement report that they have 'become friends with local people'."
 

ADDress Business Model Diagram

Society is seeking "new blood"

President Sabetto expresses the importance of community interaction this way: "From the era of high economic growth to the present, money has driven society. Money became the lifeblood, creating flows of people and goods that energized society. On the other hand, over-reliance on this lifeblood of money has highlighted problems like excessive concentration in major cities and regional depopulation. I believe society is now seeking some kind of new blood."

Listening to President Sabetto, I recalled a theory: that Mongol nomads significantly influenced China's cultural development. Through their interactions with settled populations across China, cultures blended and evolved. If the mixing of people drives the advancement of society, economy, and culture, then ADDress isn't just a housing service—it feels like a project that could elevate Japan as a nation to the next level.
 

Scene from the October 2019 press conference

Creating a Platform for Life

"To put it simply, I want to create a platform for life," says President Sabetto. "And that platform isn't built solely on the power of money. While the term 'work-style reform' is becoming established, we haven't yet fully evolved to 'lifestyle reform' or, more fundamentally, 'way-of-life reform.' Conversely, I believe this means our society still holds immense potential for growth."

Having a fixed address, commuting to a fixed company or school, benefiting from local administrative services. From birth, we've lived without questioning this platform of "a home and its immediate surroundings." ADDress offers a new choice here. It redefines where we live. This brings us back to the opening reference to "Nomadland." The characters in the film all "return" to their respective places, but this doesn't mean going back to their hometowns where they were born. What is home? The future envisioned by ADDress is a grand one that profoundly changes this concept.
 

The era where having one home and one address is the norm is coming to an end. It's not about choosing city or countryside; it's about living in both. In this affluent country, we want to offer a way of life where you "ADD" addresses to your existence—moving beyond low-happiness, intangible living. Across the nation, the lives of caretakers, members, and local residents become communities to which each person belongs, allowing everyone to have multiple places they call their own. That's the vision behind our name.

Visit the ADDress homepage here.

Season 2 of the Dentsu Inc. 'Company Design' team's series exploring the secrets of 'vibrant companies' with 'originality.' Episode 9 introduced 'ADDress,' a subscription-based housing service utilizing vacant homes.

Season 1 of the series can be found here:
The "Company Design" project site is here.

[Editor's Note]

At the end of the interview, the editorial team posed a slightly longer question to President Sabetto. "Experiencing the earthquake and COVID-19, I feel we Japanese have been starkly reminded of how ignorant we are about our own homeland's land and culture. What are your thoughts on this? For instance, that 67% of Japan's land is forest, or that it's an incredibly long country stretching north to south. It seems we'd completely forgotten such things in our everyday lives."

President Sabetsudo's response was profound. "I believe it reflects a decline in our ability to live with the land. The homeland isn't merely a place. It's cultivated through experiencing and learning the local customs and culture rooted in that region, through interaction with the people who live there, especially the pioneers. The same applies to houses. While Japanese houses are said to have a lifespan of 60 years, as seen in the renovation of old folk houses, the truly good ones grow more charming with time. By directly experiencing the spaces, textures, and lingering memories of those who lived there generations ago, doesn't the flavor of our present-day living become deeper and more captivating?"

Experiencing the earthquake and COVID-19, we have lost many precious things. Amidst these sacrifices, we gained an opportunity to deeply contemplate a theme we had previously avoided: "What is truly important in life?" The answer lies within our daily lives. And it made me reflect anew that this life is built upon "interaction" with family and friends living in the same era, with our predecessors, and with those yet to be born.