Sometimes I fantasize buying/renovating/building a home in the countryside because it’s cheap and because of nature. Has anyone made the move and how is it? Here is my list:
-Close to streams, woods, or nature
-Large garden to grow herbs or vegetables
-BBQ area
-Thick insulation in walls
-Modern toilet/bath/kitchen
-Within a 15 minute walk of a train station
17 comments
I live in the Inaka and it’s 45 min walk to a train station, 15 mins would be a dream
Usually inaka and within 15 min of a station aren’t very compatible
Pretty similar but I’ll add close to nature that is not likely to murder me via inclement weather (mudslides, landslides, flooding) or earthquake/tsunami.
Minimal monkeys. I prefer bears to monkeys. Bears are reasonable creatures.
Space for fruit trees, bonus points if it’s the right climate for a pomegranate tree.
I like to imagine having a place where a couple friends can build nearby. So we can have one big old garden to share, with a nice fire pit and hangout area outside.
I actually have all those things (edge of a small town) with the caveat that the train station is on a shitty little branch line that I never use because it’s easier to drive to the main line.
Also although I’ve got the space where I could grow herbs and vegetables it wouldn’t work because my goats would eat them. I have enough trouble stopping them eating the stuff the neighbours are growing.
The hitch is that if you want
> Thick insulation in walls
…you’re going to have to put it in at great expense. My house and land was like 7 million yen. The minimal repairs to make it livable without a load of insulation would have been another 7 million, but I spent double that to get it properly warm. And that was with a brilliant, reasonably-priced local builder; The professional place wanted nearly double that again. One problem is that the walls are too thin to just stuff insulation in, so if you want it you have to actually *add another layer of wall*.
This is why normal people just knock the old houses down and build new ones, unless they want to live in a place with character and history and psychic power.
All that said, you might have more luck with a house from the late 80s or 90s.
i want one of those farmhouses built in the 80s that look 100 years older than they are.
Tokyo llama is restoring one on youtube , though he’s modernizing it more than i would.
ideally, i’d build this in the valley i’m currently living in, which looks inaka but is 20ish minutes from two stations and close to yokosuka/zushi/kamakura.
You’re looking at rural Hokkaido.
Come on out, it’s lovely. Renovate if you have the skills or build new if you have the cash.
We’ve got the wood stove burning so warm and toasty. Looking outside the sky is full of stars and can hear tanuki or something rustling around in the forest. Nearest train station is a bit more than 15 minutes walk away but if you have a bike or scooter it’s not that far and runs directly into central Chiba city and on into Tokyo.
As for space, well lets just say there’s plenty to grow your own food, throw a massive bbq party or whatever you might have in mind. Neighbours are close enough you don’t feel like you are the last living human being on earth but far enough away you also have some privacy.
800sqm. swimming pool. Movie theatre. Bbq area. Nice garden with some crops. Grow own vegetables and water. Built on top of solid brick foundations. 5-star hotel renovation. Helicopter landing pad if I can afford a helicopter
Mine is 3 out of 6. The last one is difficult though.
One house in Kagawa. Not quite traditional, but older Showa build, was full of clutter (mostly now gone) from the previous owner. Toilet/bath fine, kitchen OK for me, but all easily modernisable. Did not require all that much work (some rewiring, a little repair of roof). Ten minutes walk to train station and next to fields, close (4 mins walk) to woods on a hill. Very much inaka.
Insulation is not thick. It is very, very, cold in the Winter. Most walls really just tsuchikabe, though the room I work in has wood panelling added. I think older house will need work on insulation.
New builds exist in much the same setting.
Another house (houses are cheap in inaka if you look) on Amami-Oshima. Very much more inaka. Island has no trains. House is proper traditional wood-build, most internal partitions are shoji or paper, though there’s some wooden walling. Easy to change. Roofing more of a problem. More of a challenge/adventure for DIY person. But fun to live in.
i bought 90坪 land (dirt cheap at 700万円) and built a 51坪 house on it with the rest being parking and a back garden. None of the other houses in my neighbourhood have gardens and they always tell me how they wished they had one instead of just having a bigger car port/concrete area. I’m around 40min walk from my nearest train station but i never use the train unless i go out drinking in the city, i can commute everywhere by car. My city is surrounded by mountains too so lot’s of streams to swim in the summer and wife’s relatives all live closeby who are farmers so get a lot of veg/fruit given to us.
That all sounds good, but for me I’d have to add in a colder part of Japan that gets less/no mukade and giant spiders.
Hated living in the inaka and always keeping one eye peeled at all times for mukade/giant spider movement.
Kanazawa is often regarded as inaka but it has a lot of small city perks. I’m 10 min by bicycle/100yen bus to the major station where there are free shuttle busses to Round1, supersento, beach, etc.
For deeper inaka and cheaper land people flock to Tsubata.
Nearby is Noto beach and Hakusan skiing. Next town over, Nonoichi, is frequently in the top 3 places for families in the country. Kaga, Fukui and Toyama are pretty great places for excursions.
Kind of cheating since I am already living in the inaka, but consider them tips on things that are hard/expensive to change after you move in:
-Outlets
-Double-pane windows
-More outlets
-(External) door frames which haven’t been skewed and distorted by earthquakes
-Connection to the sewer
-If possible, even more outlets
15 walk to a functional busy station is not called inaka. 15 min walk to a dead station is inaka, which you will still need car anyway to survive. If OP want the previous type, be prepared of 200mil yen in cash for the land that ticks all checks
Most of that sounds feasible. If you ever find a cheap house that is insulated, you hit the jackpot. Probably that part is the only one you won’t find.
I lived 10 years in the inaka in something like that environment. IMO the train station is irrelevant. I absolutely never took the train and nobody else I knew did either. Japan inaka is car country. It was so extreme that on a visit to Osaka I half forgot how to use the ticket machines. Really felt like a dumb hick…
But I really enjoyed the life. Do it if you can!
This is such a classic r/japanlife thread. OP wants to do something, a bunch of people post to say they’re doing it and how great it is, and the most upvoted comment is saying it can’t be done.
I can’t think of any other community that’s so default-negative about everything. I bet even on depression subs they’re positive about ways you can kill yourself.