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Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

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Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#141

Post by [deleted] »

pj_mukh wrote: post #77
mettamage wrote: post #52

So wait, there are places where there are houses being given away (e.g. US, Japan and Italy as far as I know) and I'm a person that has the ability to work remotely. Am I missing something? Is this my ticket to cheap housing and a more stress free life? At what point am I going to be scammed and/or disappointed?

Is it just me or is the prospect of working from home in the middle of nowhere terrifying? When you work from home, you wanna leave home often, where do you go if you're in the middle of nowhere? I work from home in the middle of a dense city, pay a premium for it! You leave home and there are about 100 places (cafes, theatres, museums, parks etc.) I can go to that are walking distance. Is that possible in say rural…

[deleted]

Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#142

Post by yourapostasy »

Ibethewalrus wrote: post #111
ghaff wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Houses are generally not being given away but there are tons of places in the US where housing is dirt cheap compared to prime coastal urban real estate.

Where?

Look at a map of US MSAs [1]: nearly anywhere outside of an MSA will be cheaper than within the MSA. Anywhere that is outside an MSA, has very poor soil, no exploitable oil and/or mineral (and most mineral and oil rights are separate from the land anyways), not by a body of water, and has no electric/water/sewage service is going to be very cheap, like $100-500 per acre cheap.

Of course, the catch is that standing up your own slice of civilization infrastructure will get either expensive and/or time-consuming, depending upon your non-negotiables. The more requirements you will not do without, the more inputs you will want to haul into or build upon the property.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area

Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#143

Post by jupiter90000 »

komali2 wrote: post #101
titanix2 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you're missing that foreigners are not the target of these deals. Also it's not terribly complicated to get a visa to come here: you basically need at least a bachelor degree and to find a job. Given how the job market is starving for employees, it is not really hard. I know a half-dozen people of my country and my age that did it.

> Given how the job market is starving for employees Japanese companies in general have an abhorrent work culture. Let me hand wave cultural relativism for a second - sure, fine, it works great for the Japanese, or whatever, historical and cultural significance, fine. But I think I can make health arguments against it, let alone moral/value ones. I wish they'd explore Visas for remote workers - partner and I are very…

Not sure if it'd work for what your situation is, but there is up to 1yr visa possible if you have equivalent 30 million yen in savings. I don't know if they'd really care if you kept working remote as long as you had the money.

https://www.mofa.go.jp/ca/fna/page22e_000738.html

Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#144

Post by gwbas1c »

pj_mukh wrote: post #77
mettamage wrote: post #52

So wait, there are places where there are houses being given away (e.g. US, Japan and Italy as far as I know) and I'm a person that has the ability to work remotely. Am I missing something? Is this my ticket to cheap housing and a more stress free life? At what point am I going to be scammed and/or disappointed?

Is it just me or is the prospect of working from home in the middle of nowhere terrifying? When you work from home, you wanna leave home often, where do you go if you're in the middle of nowhere? I work from home in the middle of a dense city, pay a premium for it! You leave home and there are about 100 places (cafes, theatres, museums, parks etc.) I can go to that are walking distance. Is that possible in say rural…

> Is it just me or is the prospect of working from home in the middle of nowhere terrifying?

My wife dragged me kicking and screaming to a rural area that's a popular vacation area.

(I must admit that I wanted to end up in a different rural area that's also a popular vacation area.)

My neighborhood is excellent, and there's plenty to walk to. Rural areas still have dense spots with plenty of things to do. There's just a lot of open forests around the dense areas!

What's terrifying is that I still telecommute for the job I got when I lived in Silicon Valley. I have no idea what's going to happen when I need to change jobs.

(Edit) I still miss living right on University Ave in Palo Also, CA. But, that's not sustainable given how much it costs to live there, and our (me and wife's) overall lifestyle desires.

Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#145

Post by dsfyu404ed »

fromthestart wrote: post #98
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have lived in crappy neighborhoods[1][2]. Violence is not likely to be an issue as long as you don't inject yourselves into your neighbors' business it's really not the big deal the upper classes make it out to be with all their hand wringing. Violent crime doesn't really happen that often per capita (i.e. odds are it will never happen to you). Not getting involved with drugs is like 90% of the battle. If you do ge…

You've clearly never lived in a shitty neighborhood.

Yes I have[1][2]. It's really not bad unless you drive yourself nuts worrying about things that will probably never happen to you. Yes, you see and hear the effects of crime everywhere but as long as your not know by your neighbors to be an ass, your house is harder to rob than most of the nearby ones and you don't associate with the wrong people you'll be fine. It's not like there's stray bullets coming through your walls once a week (if there are odds are it will be the police who fired them, not that it makes it any better). If you're the person who freaks out over some people in the street getting in a fight or a gunshot a few blocks over then yeah, it's gonna be bad.

[1] https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ma/fitchburg/crime (this one is the "nicer" of the two by a long ways, has come a long way since the recession. I would have no problem raising a family here)

[2] https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ma/new-bedford/crime (this one won the "award" of #1 crime rate in the state a few years back)

Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#146

Post by rzzzt »

yardie wrote: post #48
bobthepanda wrote: post #27

The US saw similar efforts in Detroit and other Rust Belt cities. That mostly just resulted in asset flippers hoarding houses and letting them fall into further disrepair. I wonder what steps Japan is taking to mitigate that possibility.

It's a lot more complex than that. Usually these deals have tax liabilities and liens that aren't chargeable unless the city agrees to it. Anyone can tell you, there is nothing more expensive than a free house/boat/car.

Why don't they sell it at a discount, then?

Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#147

Post by monocasa »

dahdum wrote: post #139
monocasa wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Detroit already has a large immigrant population, so it's not that much of a culture shock.

From Wikipedia looks like they are below the national average, but I'd posit that means the upside is that much larger. My favorite example of this process is booming South Florida, where more than half of adults are foreign born. Houston is another great one, with 23% foreign born. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Metro_Detroit#... > 5% of people within the city of Detroit are immigrants, making the per…

The city itself has a very low immigrant population, but as is listed in your source, surrounding suburbs have very large immigrant populations. For instance Hamtranck has 43% born out of the country.

Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#148

Post by dreamcompiler »

sgc wrote: post #81
mettamage wrote: post #52

So wait, there are places where there are houses being given away (e.g. US, Japan and Italy as far as I know) and I'm a person that has the ability to work remotely. Am I missing something? Is this my ticket to cheap housing and a more stress free life? At what point am I going to be scammed and/or disappointed?

Where are houses being given away in Italy? I would love to know of the program.

Rural Italy is beautiful and the food (in the grocery stores and markets) is both great and ridiculously cheap. But there are a few downsides. 100-plus-year-old houses often require significant refurbishment including earthquake mitigation (depending on the area) and they can be expensive to heat unless you spend $$$ on new windows and good seals and insulation. But the biggest problem for a foreigner moving to Italy might be the bureaucracy: Huge stacks of paper forms to be filled out and handed in to a guy who just happens not to be in his office today. Repeatedly. If you have a lot of patience for this sort of thing, Italy is lovely.

Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#149

Post by TheGRS »

make3 wrote: post #126
mettamage wrote: post #52

So wait, there are places where there are houses being given away (e.g. US, Japan and Italy as far as I know) and I'm a person that has the ability to work remotely. Am I missing something? Is this my ticket to cheap housing and a more stress free life? At what point am I going to be scammed and/or disappointed?

these houses should probably go to extremely low income people, not a software engineer

That feels like the wrong way of looking at it. The houses are very rural and dilapidated and cheap because no one wants them. Encouraging just about anyone to get out there and make it a home, highly-paid software engineers included, would be an economic boon for that area.

Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#150

Post by walshemj »

TheGRS wrote: post #28
onetimemanytime wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insane, every 22 years house goes to zero value. Probably adding relatively little money can extend the life to 40-50 or so. If I'm 30 and buy a house, makes no sense to need to tear it down when I'm 52.

Its just thinking of your house as a depreciating asset instead of an appreciating one. Much like a car. I actually can't imagine wanting to live in the same house for more than 10 years.

Interesting I live in a house built in an old farm yard about 50 yards behind me is a farm house that was old when John Bunyan Preached there in the 1650's

And I did look at buying a Georgian alms house but the renovation was messed up and it ended up in the courts for ages

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