The Japanese government and culture hates foreigner. Unless you or your parents have Japanese citizenship, you’re going to have a hard time.
My experience as a tourist with Japanese friends…
Foreigners (like me) have a chip on our shoulders. That whole attitude of “Well guess they don’t want my money” isn’t really big there. Outside of Tokyo, foreigners get kicked out of places all the time. Often it’s done politely to avoid embarrassment.
And a foreigner swinging around cash going, “Why can’t I buy this” will quickly get a polite “It is not our way as Japanese”, which really means “fuck off”.
Yeah, it’s probably the sense of entitlement. Be respectful and you won’t have issues.
Because Japanese visa will never allow for you to live there
You can get 180 days total per year in two sets of 90 so to live in this house you’d have to:
- live there for 3 months
- leave Japan
- live there for 3 more months
- leave Japan for 6 months and have someone look after your house.
This is no way sustainable not to mention as a tourist you wouldn’t have access to anything that requires full residency which is very complicated.
You can get long term visa like education or business investment or work permit etc but those are really expensive and can be very hard to get.
Because Japan can be extremely xenophobic.
going to nightclubs as a foreigner in japan: everyone loves you and wants to talk to you
getting a job (other than teaching english to kids) as a foreigner in japan: good luck
I think you meant “going to nightclubs as a white foreigner in Japan”
Ehhh. My experience in some bars was not like that. I had a couple where they where the bouncer clearly didn’t want me inside and I was told a place was closed several times when clearly they were not. It was just closed to me.
Nightclubs new not the same as bars.
It was not a nightclub. It was a bar
going to nightclubs as a foreigner in japan: everyone loves you and wants to talk to you
OP was talking about nightclubs, not bars.
I was stuck in Turkey for 2 months, for work, a year and a half ago. I remember being told that my group could enter this club in Instanbul, and we were excited to enter, until a black guy of ours joined our group as we were walking up. Suddenly there wasn’t room in the club anymore. That shit pissed me off.
Racism instead of xenophobia, but similar lived experiences of (witnessing) discrimination I suppose.
It’s a very remote place
Because they won’t sell it to a foreigner. It’s not exactly legal but they won’t sell anyway.
Unless you lawyer up beforehand.
A lot of these are sold by real estate companies that take 100% commission for customers who just don’t want to pay the taxes on it. They couldn’t care less about if you are a foreigner. The local government however, may place restrictions to prevent you from just making it an Air b&b.
You can actually do this in most countries. Public Auctions of homes are for when people don’t pay land taxes so the local auditors repossess them and sell them dirt cheap to cover the amount due.
You certainly can’t buy a home in Germany that’s anywhere close to as cheap as the one in japan. Maybe there are some very remote plots of land with a ruin of a house on it, but those will still cost more than 4000€.
Public auctions around my area usually start at around 150k or more, so it’s just not worth it for me.
I don’t speak enough Deutsch to navigate their websites for specific examples, but home foreclosures in Germany increased 9% yoy in January 2025, but you’re also correct that property prices are quite high which is the primary contributor to rise in foreclosures.
It’s definitely highly desirable property given the chaos in the USA, the East, etc.
The catch is that rural Japan is a a shithole rife with xenophobia, privacy violations, bullying, and problematic neighbors. And that’s for ethnically Japanese people, so it’s be way worse if you were actually a foreigner.
There’s a reason why people in Japan try so hard to move away from rural areas into cities.
What kind of privacy violations? Do the neighbors peek into your windows?
Panty theft, naturally.
We hit the jackpot, boys!
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Can’t tell if the way small minded bigots stay away from the best parts of every country is a fun coincidence or causal.
I read a while back, a testimony from someone who grew up in small town America and then moved into the city when they were older. They explained that there is a lot of indoctrination against “cityfolk” because it’s largely used as a scapegoat. As city dwellers tend to be more progressive due to their heightened social stimulation, this leads a lot of small-towners to hate the idea of progress
The issues with city people go way beyond just progress.
I understand the Japanese don’t like old houses. Homes are regularly torn down and rebuilt. Do some research, but it might not cost as much as in the West to rebuild.
It depends. There are cheap builders here of course, but you really get what you pay for. You’re going to be paying a lot if you want insulation, double-glazed windows (or better), mechanical ventilation, enveloping, etc.
Don’t buy these old japanese houses, they’re literally made of mud and sticks and have absolutely fuck all for insulation.
Living in nature is all fun and games until you’re expected to expected to sleep in 50 degree weather while your split unit struggles to keep your paper box of a bedroom cool.
Most of the time the closest hospital is like 2-3 hours away on a bus that only comes twice a day, so you better hope you never get in an accident cause the ambulance won’t come for hours and your only other hope is the only other person in neighborhood: your 90 year old neighbor who you’re not sure is even still alive.
Source: lived in one for multiple years.
Wattle and daube is actually pretty insulated for what it is. That said Japanese homes are cold because they’re breezey choosing high air turnover over high insulation value in an attempt to circumvent some of the summer humidity.
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for $3k i’d buy it just for the land it sits on. who cares about the house
Right? That’d be a solid investment for someone with enough money to replace/remodel the house
Land in Japan only appreciates in large cities. If you buy it now at 3k it’ll be worth 2k in 30 years.
Nah in 30 years it’ll have a real fuckin nice house on it that’ll bring up the value
If you built a house in Japan now for the cost of 100k the house would be worth 50k in 30 years.
Real estate in Japan appreciates like cars, unless you have an especially rare piece of land, it depreciates over time. It’s a bad investment unless you’re actively getting use out of it.
Part of why there’s so much cheap and abandoned land in Japan, there’s no real estate investment structure outside of land near train stations.
there’s no real estate investment structure outside of land near train stations.
So it’s the way it should be, then.
No real “I’m gonna buy cheap land in fuck-off nowhere and build a fucking theme park or whatever and run ads to make sure some idiots make the long trek out to this miserable tivoli of scams and no options. But then other people get the opportunity to settle close to me and compete by selling almost reasonably priced sustenance, and such. And some years down the line we’ve got a shitty pointless desert town going, one with a defunct theme park about raccoons or some shit.”
Sounds like Totoro. Here’s you 3k I’m in.
I actually looked into that property once; there was no way it was going to happen for a number of reasons. I ended up buying a house in much better condition in another area.
I really need to do a video about the topic or something. There are many, many landmines with stuff like this. For a very TL;DR and assuming every single other thing is perfect: owning a home does not give you the right to spend any extra time in Japan nor grant a visa; you are on the hook for taxes, fees, septic maintenance (though the above property may have been a pit toilet; I don’t remember), and other bills which will have to be paid from a Japanese bank account. There are also certain neighborhood association obligations, property maintenance, fire control, etc.
Not all of us gaijin are tourists. I have permanent residency and I would love to find a cheap house far from the noise and smoke. Do you know where I can look up houses like this?
I’d start by researching areas and find places you like the climate, vibe, future prospects, etc. from there, start with suumo then the akiya bank to get an idea. Next, go in person and spend a weekend there. See what exists that is NOT listed anywhere other thanaybr a sign in the yard (or not even listed but obviously not lived in).
I watched a video from an American guy who did this. But he already had residence, and made it very clear that if you don’t have residence, doing something like this would be a waste of time and money. He bought a massive junker of a house and it took him like 2 years and a bunch of help to make it livable. Still a good video, and still a cool idea, assuming you have certain ducks already lined up. Definitely not something to do on a whim.
I looked at doing something like this in quite a few countries, and skipped on Japan pretty quickly. Happy with my decision though.
Also, why buy if you don’t want to live there?
It’s not gonna earn rent out there. Italy, among other countries also let’s you buy abandoned homes.
Not sure if they’re still doing it, but a few years back (holy shit maybe a decade), Italy was even offering to pay people to move there. But there were massive conditions. Like, you had to buy a historical property, maintain it to their standards, and open a business to boost tourism, or something along those lines. I looked into it and was kind of intrigued, but it seemed pretty obvious it was designed to draw rich expats, not average losers like me.
I believe they now charge $1. Still unaffordable.
In my case, I moved to the Japanese countryside because I wanted to farm, mostly. But, yeah, I’m definitely not the average case.
Sounds amazing, as long as the locals don’t show dissent.
So far so good a year in. Everyone’s been super friendly and helpful.
In some cases in Italy the condition for buying is that you’ll live there.
That’s good.
Essentially, there’s usually good reason it was abandoned.
Additionally, houses in Japan aren’t really built to last. Properties like these are usually bulldozed and rebuit when purchased.
Building standards are improving but, yeah, slowly. Kominka over 100 years can have really good structure if well maintained, but it definitely would not be something who isn’t already knowledgeable about them. The majority fall into ruin.
Essentially, there’s usually good reason it was abandoned.
I knew it…
Ghosts
Basically.
Grandma died and nobody wants to live in a 50 year old house in the middle of nowhere.
Essentially, there’s usually good reason it was abandoned.
For $3400, I’m fine with living with tormented ghosts.
I can imagine this would make your taxes wacky
なぜだめなのw
That place is either haunted or home to some nature spirits. Either way thwy’ll fuck you up.
Sounds like a deal then
Honestly seems like a more dignified way to go out than in American Civil War 2: Brain Rot Edition
Sounds like having roommates
So I can live a real-life Studio Ghibli movie!?
requires repairs
Black mold fucking everywhere.
Might be a fun projectStarting with “after the burning”
No insurer will touch it without being brought up to earthquake code, either, most likely.
You’d die when the next big earthquake or landslide hits that home. Or when Sadako crawls out of your TV
I can fix her.
She’s crawling out of my TV cuz she wants the D.
Someone somewhere just started rifling through their shadman archive.
…Diaper, she wants to change my Diaper ?
With house prices that good, I can’t afford not to die!
