This seems important: "Since buying the farmhouse in 2019, the couple have spent about $150,000 on renovations"
$200K for a house is still cheap in most places.
It’s rural Japan. That’s daylight robbery.
Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
51–60 of 84 posts
Re: Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
#52Important to note that, unlike in many other countries, housing in Japan is a depreciating asset, like a car. Their value goes to zero over time. This is somewhat contrary to what many of us are accustomed to, where houses are appreciating (or at least stable) assets which maintain or grow in value.
This doesn’t make any sense to me. Why wouldn’t a really poor family buy it when it’s really close to zero then, especially if it’s a perfectly habitable house.
It's likely not perfectly habitable as the price heads to zero.
Re: Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
This doesn’t make any sense to me. Why wouldn’t a really poor family buy it when it’s really close to zero then, especially if it’s a perfectly habitable house.
It's likely not perfectly habitable as the price heads to zero.
If it’s a depreciating asset there’s a good chance it’s maintained while the price is dropping. How bad could it get as long as it’s not abandoned?
The whole thing is built on a cultural premise where people don’t want to live in houses that have been lived in. It’s fickle and it’s amazing to me that it has persisted for so long.
Re: Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have a college degree or 10 years professional experience? Congratulations, after finding a job you can move here. And on top of that your visa is not tied to your employer so there’s no visa risk if you find a better job on the spot ([0]) There’s some immigration stuff that’s tougher, but based off everything I’ve heard from dealing with Anglo countries or the EU, most people on this website would have zero p…
Can you become a citizen? Because most people aren’t interested in some perpetual limbo.
Yes, “easily” based on what people who do it say. But getting citizenship requires [0] renouncing other citizenships.
There’s a permanent resident status which is I think is closest to a green card. You can’t vote but you don’t have to work or otherwise justify your existence. You can temporarily leave the country for several years if you intend to return (apparently this is pretty loose so “several” = 10)
There was a window during COVID where permanent residents were stuck outside the country. It was a couple of months, and I’m hopeful future incidents would be more humane… but citizens were not stranded.
[0] there is some pedantry on “requires”.
Re: Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's many ways to immigrate to Japan, and the point system is one of the hardest because it gives you direct access to Permanent Residency (incidentally I will apply next year to it) instead of the temporary Work Visa. As far as you have a degree and a job offer from a Japanese company (both should be related) it's trivial to fill the paperwork to come here. Engineers in particular have it pretty easy, with many E…
In practice if you’re out of a job you can be put on a special visa to look for work and if done in good faith I’ve heard of people who were on such visas for like 6 months. Another point about being “on your own”. Basically every service that exists to help people out of work is accessible to foreigners. My locality offers “loans” (partially aid, part loan) for people who experience massive drops in salaries, for ex…
Oh it's even simpler, you just keep the same visa and officially you are good for 3 months, unofficially it's much longer (as long as you have left in your previous visa), so that's good and much better than in e.g. the USA, I'm just saying that the jump from normal work visa to Permanent Residency (equivalent to the greencard) is a bit harsh.
Say for example you've been working for 7 years in Japan and your father gets sick back in your home country. If you go back for few months to help out you are basically a goner (unless you can keep remote working). Or that after working e.g. 10 years abroad and 5 in Japan you just want to take 6 month break for a bad burnout. No cannot do.
Re: Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's very intentional. Japan is largely homogenous and there's a lot of support for keeping it that way.
Until they homogenous their way to a country that doesn’t breed and has 75% of the population above 60.
I’m pretty sure they’re more okay with that than letting immigrants in. The Japanese have no interest in bringing different looking people into the country.
Re: Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
#57I've been watching the progress of this Australian, who with his Japanese wife bought an abandoned farmhouse. His work ethic is way better than mine - in the past four years he's made tremendous progress in getting the place fixed up. I really like the wood beam construction with ceramic tile roof that makes up the style of the home. They bought the house at auction for ¥3mm (about $23,000 USD today). No idea what th…
It seems to be a genre on YouTube, here's another channel where they did similar, though they didn't buy the place, they're renting it for $300/year (I had no idea that there were spiders whose eyes glow when you point a flashlight at them) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Jzd_1c5cA
Re: Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you become a citizen? Because most people aren’t interested in some perpetual limbo.
Yes, “easily” based on what people who do it say. But getting citizenship requires [0] renouncing other citizenships. There’s a permanent resident status which is I think is closest to a green card. You can’t vote but you don’t have to work or otherwise justify your existence. You can temporarily leave the country for several years if you intend to return (apparently this is pretty loose so “several” = 10) There was…
The answer is no. No, it isn’t easy and no you will not get citizenship. Japan is notoriously difficult (impossible) to become a real citizen in.
Re: Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, 20x less renovation than a $4m house in Palo Alto needs.
Or move to Ireland and buy 20 already finished houses for that price
200K wouldn't buy much of a house in Ireland these days.
> Households paid a median or mid-point price of €305,000 for a residential property in the 12 months to January 2023.
https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-rppi/resi...
And that would be a lot higher if you want to buy in a city like Dublin or Cork.
Re: Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, “easily” based on what people who do it say. But getting citizenship requires [0] renouncing other citizenships. There’s a permanent resident status which is I think is closest to a green card. You can’t vote but you don’t have to work or otherwise justify your existence. You can temporarily leave the country for several years if you intend to return (apparently this is pretty loose so “several” = 10) There was…
The answer is no. No, it isn’t easy and no you will not get citizenship. Japan is notoriously difficult (impossible) to become a real citizen in.
I've lived in Japan since 2009. In my opinion, most foreign residents who want to stay here long-term are interested only in permanent residence, and not citizenship. Reason being they don't want to give up their existing non-Japanese citizenship (which is technically a requirement for citizenship in Japan).