Are Akiya houses still a thing?

4 comments

1. This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.

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   **Are Akiya houses still a thing?**

   Im wondering if akiya houses are still available and how to go about acquiring one as a non-japanese citizen. Has anyone else had experience obtaining one?
   Do you gain rights to the land or just the structure?
   Ive watched videos on them, did some research but the sources I found seem to be from a year or two ago. Im wondering if they’ve all been taken.
   Sorry if Im asking too much.

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2. You likely don’t meet the requirements, often the requirements are something like:

   * Japanese or Japanese spouse
   * Have children already
   * Willing to live in a town with few stores.
   * Willing to live in house for 10+ years
   * Willing to work in the town(where there are few if any jobs)
   * Willing to spend millions of yen to refurbish house to livable conditions

   It is absolutely not the free for all people think it is.

3. Owning a house in Japan doesn’t convey any kind of right to live in Japan, what exactly is your plan for being allowed to live there in the first place?

4. “akiya” means an empty house. If you’re talking about public projects to offer one for free, you have to be a Japanese citizen to be eligible, and most places require candidates to be married, under a certain age and already have a child or two. If you just want to buy a near-free house, you’re free to buy one but owning a house doesn’t give you a visa.

   Also, have you given a thought about why none of the family members who grew up in those houses who are emotionally attached to it left it to rot?