Japan’s Abandoned Homes Crisis: 1.58 Million Properties Left to Decay

21 comments

1. All foreigners wanna go to Tokyo and Osaka, these properties are in like Tottori or Aomori so no fame from going there, jobs are terrible too unless you got remote

2. These numbers don’t seem to add up

3. >1.58 Million Properties Left to Decay
   >
   >Japan has a staggering 6.5 million homes, out of which nearly 900,000 are vacant
   >
   >The largest category is rental properties, with 4.4 million empty units, followed by neglected homes at 3.85 million, secondary residences at 383,000, and homes for sale at 327,000

    🤔 numbers don’t add up at all

4. At least it’s content fodder for Youtubers and Tiktokkers who’ll have you believe it’s the next gold rush.

5. > The largest category is rental properties

   Oh no! Will no-one spare a thought for the poor landlords?

6. I went to hoshi station today like 40 min outside Osaka station and it already had abandoned houses everywhere. It’s crazy.

7. I would love to go renovate in the japanese countryside but there is simply no visa option that makes it possible.

   There is a reason all the youtubers renovating akiyas are married to japanese citizens. All other visa options lead through getting a sponsoring job, which won’t be in the countryside.

   If you could get a visa on the premise of supporting yourself financially and promising to renovate and live in an akiya I think there would be huge levels of support, but as it is nobody wants to spend a decade in tokyo trying to get permanent residency so you can finally buy a countryside akiya.

8. The numbers here don’t seem to make sense – only 6.5 million homes?? The population is circa 125 million.
   The other numbers too seem off for my smooth brain.

   Edit: yes, they are off by a factor of 10. There are about 62 million homes, 9 million of which are vacant. The 13.8% is correct.

   Edit 2: To help visualize, 9 million empty homes is about the same as the total number of homes in New York (city and state)

9. Most of those old properties are a danger to live in. People opt for modem homes as they have much greater earthquake resistance

10. A crisis is not having enough affordable homes for people to live in, a problem Japan generally doesn’t have.

    Abandoned houses slipping back into nature in dying towns in the countryside is maybe not ideal, but it’s not a “crisis” like people in London being forced to live on the streets.

11. In Japan, all houses lose values, so they all technically are left to decay. Some are just going there faster than others. But since scrap and rebuild is the policy, empty houses are thus not really a waste, they are just reaching the end of their shelf life within 10 years rather than 20 (assuming they’ve been used for 20).

    It’d be a waste if there was a need for housing in these places, but with population decrease, there is none, so it is just an early retirement for these houses.

12. I bought my 40 year old hose in Chiba ,15 minutes from work and the sea I couldn’t be happier

13. Why are so many of these homes empty? Why doesn’t Japan just give visas to people who want to buy/rebuild these homes? Japan doesn’t need people for the sake of people. Japan needs tax payers and babies (future tax payers). They don’t need vacation homes or people working remotely from and paying tax to their home countries. They need to rebuild dying communities- meaning they need fluent Japanese speakers to work in the hospitals, grocery stores, drive the buses, farm, etc *in* those communities. They need people to be active in their little communities to do things like clean around the community shrine, refill the sandbags to prevent flooding, take down the hornets nests, paint and clean the garbage bins and so forth. Just having people in the houses (especially on holidays) isn’t enough.

14. Oh wow Tokushima… I’d love to live there. It’s even right near where my family lives. I’ve heard such lovely things about it. There’s cool whirlpools and you can take a ferry boat to go see the whirlpools. There’s cool videos of it in YouTube. So sad to hear about how many houses there are empty. 

15. Because all those houses are in buttfukk nowhere where nobody wants to live in. There’s no infrastructure, no services, no nothing. Even your nearest conbini is like a 30mins drive away.

16. I don’t understand the first sentence:

    According to the 2023 survey, Japan has a staggering 6.5 million homes, out of which nearly 900,000 are vacant, resulting in an empty house rate of 13.8%. 

    How can Japan have only 6.5 million homes. 126 million people means a shade under 20 people per home.

    I know Japan is crowded, but it’s not that crowded.

    Is it ignoring apartments or something?

17. The numbers are wrong, but the point still stands. I’ve seen a significant amount of akiyas in my neighborhood get torn down these last few months. It’s not like I live in Inaka-shi Aomori-ken; I live 10 minutes off Yokosuka, which has very easy access to trains and highways for a 1h commute to Tokyo, even shorter for Yokohama.
    Some akiyas were being rented out, but there were no tenants willing to live in them. Sucks to see.

18. Truly praying when I’m done with Language school in two years there’s jobs for English teachers in the countryside with houses like that still available 🥹. Living near the water, growing your own food, and having a small Japanese home in the middle of nowhere is the dream.

19. Make remote work viable and I’ll live in some regional joint in Japan

20. It’s the borg beehive thing. Everyone goes where everyone else is.

21. 1) Since Japan taxes land higher than land with a dwelling on it, surprise surprise. People let those houses slowly fall into dereliction. No laws to force cleaning up of derelict houses either.
    2) Rental properties vacancies are being inflated by large real estate corps. They purposefully do not drop prices if they remain empty as they have a monopoly on prime real estate. This is the only statistic that seems out of control.
    3) Secondary residences. Not sure what the point is. Not really out of the ordinary. People buy second homes.
    4) Homes for sale. Seems rather low, to be honest.