14% of all homes in Japan found to be vacant: survey

7 comments

1. Damn 🦫. I wanna change that.

2. Lol for now. Those are rookie numbers. Give japan 5 more years

3. That’s interesting, does the definition of akiya include apartments?

4. That seems surprisingly low. I’m in western Tokyo prefecture and between the cheap-ass Cosmo homes that pop up everywhere like weeds and sit empty and all the old houses that are obviously abandoned, it’s probably at 14%.

   Leave the great Tokyo area and it’s gotta be way higher.

5. And in conjunction with abandoned homes, increasing number of schools are shuttered due to shrinking attendance.

   “About 450 close every year, government data shows. Between 2002 and 2020, nearly 9,000 shut their doors forever, making it hard for remote areas to lure in new and younger residents.”

   [https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/asia-population-japan-children/](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/asia-population-japan-children/)

6. Incredible, you will still have to pay key money though. ちょっと, ちょっと…

7. I went to check out a place in Otari because of how cheap the area is while still close to Hakuba ski resorts and, despite the huge number of empty houses, the process to purchase one was crazy.

   Granted, I am not a Japanese resident (I want to buy a place for ski holidays) but the process is the same. The governmental local body has to track down the owners of these empty places, despite them being empty for years, to get permission to sell them. They just sit on them (insanely low property taxes probably contribute to that). Then, to apply for a house that’s listed on the government website, I have to actually get permission from the neighbours to then purchase it. Plus I would have to be there at least twice a year to participate in local village activities.

   I understand there needs to be a balance between populating these areas which are quickly emptying with people like me (foreigners who want a vacation/rental property) and actual residents but my point is that they don’t make it easy to buy places in these areas, even for people who want to purchase an empty house.

   Japan has an uphill battle ahead with all these issues.