There’s a similar program in rural Italy, and as soon as I heard about the hype around it and Akiya, my first thought was “if you wouldn’t buy a shitty house where you already live to fix up… why would you do it in a place where you don’t speak the language, don’t know local laws and regulations, and don’t know anyone?” Cheap price tag aside I’ve never understood why anyone would think doing that would be in any way easy.

As a Japanese realtor qualified by our government, this video includes good suggestions. Living in abandoned house has many obstacles such as boundary line, drainage ditch, and septic tank. In rural areas, there are inappropriate realtors. Experts cannot deal with this trading.

1:14 Not only does owning a home in Japan not give you permission to stay in the country, it could get you on an immigration blacklist if you're not careful. Depending on which country you're from, you can come to Japan on a short-term visa for up to 90 days. This tourist visa is for tourism, visiting relatives, etc, so if you are going to Japan to live in a property that you own or work remote, that could go against the purpose of the visa and Japan immigration can deny entry.

I am currently remodeling a very old home on Teshima island. I am very aware that it is not an investment. I am fortunate to have friends here who are assisting in the process in exchange for allowing access for his parents to stay when they are visiting. His wife is Japanese and is handling the architect and construction communications. The property has a beautiful Japanese garden with a waterfall and pond, which I have already cleaned up. My property had been abandoned since the 70’s and it has taken us a month to clean it out. We had to schedule for a day to have the council inspect every load of burnable, then non-burnable trash. Any trash from the actual construction is handled by the construction company. Old TV’s, computers, refrigerators, etc. all have their own special way of being disposed of. There is also the expense of tearing down several barns and bath house, plus putting in a septic system. Fortunately, it does have running water already, but will be completely rewired, replumbed, and remodeled.. I will live here part time. It is definitely not cheap to remodel an akiya.

The biggest issue with Akiya is that westerner's think of it as a financial investment. Housing is NOT an investment to Japanese people. At least not in the monetary sense. People need to try to understand the culture first before even thinking about buying a house.

Also, everyone wants to live in and around Tokyo. That's how you know they don't truly even like the country. Countryside Japan is 1000x better than a lot of the bigger cities. I speak from experience.

The Tenga in the background was an interesting creative choice.

It's a really special kind of arrogance for someone(s) abroad to assume that they know better than an entire native population, and think they can outsmart them. It's not as if Japanese people aren't smart - nobody would abandon entire homes unless there were compelling reasons to do that.

11:52 The Tenga by your right shoulder.  LOL.😁

Real Rural Japan also made an interesting point in one of his videos about akiya; he mentioned that in some circumstances you are obligated to live there the majority of the time and as a result, you're obligated to help the community; in his case, that means cleaning the streets and doing maintenance to make sure the trees and grass don't overgrow.

Don't think you can just throw money at an akiya and move in living like you do in your home country.

Thank you for the informative video.

We live in an Akiya in the countryside of yamanashi prefecture .

As you point out, it brings some challenges. But at the same time, if tackled the right way, it is absolutely realistic to live in an akiya for very cheap and be happy.

Cost of land and house including paperwork and initial tax: Around 10k usd
Renovation (including addressing urgent issues such as leaking roof, rusty pipes, sunken floors etc): Around 10k usd
Yearly tax: 200 usd

Other challenges: Poor thermal insulation, getting used to bugs and insects in and around the house
Upsides: Very cheap cost of living, close to nature, calm, freedom, DIY-spirit, enjoying the charm of old Japanese house

Furthermore it is vital to speak a decent level of Japanese and maintain good communication within the neighborhood. And have a visa to stay in Japan if you are foreigner.

That's it. no other traps

Not just Akiyas, this applies to all housing. I was looking at a house that was bought through an auction and flipped. There were many restrictions on it because there were no recognized road access to the house even though a "road" lead to the house. that road was not recognized because it was access to farming fields next to a bunch of homes. Because of that, you could not tear down and rebuild, you could only repair or reform. Also the garbage collection point was far away which would require a 5 minute car ride. There is a road that leads to the location, about a 3 minute walk, but you would have to cross someone else's property to access it.

People are doing this inside cities, too, and the crappy airbnbs they rent their flipped houses to ruin small communities. I've lived here 17 years, and our house is a newer build in a very very old neighborhood that has been in a slow process of revitalization. Lots of local families having their houses refurbished, which is great to see, while, in the taking economy, others have lost their homes or have sold them to predatory realtors. For years, practically since we had our home built, we've been getting flyers in our mailbox to "Sell off that unwanted property discreetly!", gaslighting people into thinking they should practically give away their homes for free. Urban redevelopment is pushing into our neighborhood, which means we're sitting on a goldmine in a great location in the city, but it has also created conditions for foreigners to buy up properties (thanks to the aforementioned predatory realtors, which largely cater to Chinese buyers) and wait to cash in. While they wait, they carelessly rent them out to airbnb companies who allow any trashy tourist group to come in and disturb what used to be a great small neighborhood. They're loud at all hours and leave trash around. The people who buy these houses do not, and will likely never, live here, and don't care at all about what their "investment" is doing to communities. It sucks that the government is even allowing homes to be sold under these conditions. There should be tighter regulations so that this kind of crap can't happen.

Totally agree with Yuta. Lots of Japanese friends who complain about not being able to to get rid of their old houses. And their locations in the boonies is not optimal to say the least. Not even getting into how much money has to be spent to renovate them. They are NOT an investment and more like a money pit.

My husband is Japanese and we recently moved from London to Tokyo. I would love to get land in the countryside, in Kochi-ken near a friend of mine. But likely if there was an akiya on the land, we would tear it right down and get something custom built. My friend lives in a Taisho era house, but it's been in continuous habitation through her family all that time, which makes a huge difference. Buildings NEED people, especially in tropical climates, and especially wooden buildings.

It suddenly occurs to me, my grandmother's house was the USA equivalent of an akiya until she bought it (and now it is again).  Because it was built (badly, even by the standards of the time) in the 1850s, it had no foundation, no insulation, no wiring or plumbing until she installed them...  But she and I loved that house so much.  I can definitely see how it's not the lifestyle for everyone, though!

Anton’s niche is that he does short term vacation rentals .

He is not “flipping”. He is selling the fulfillment of expectations of what westerners want to experience when visiting Japan. & that worked fabulously for him.

As an owner of a recently vacant akiya (2) years, there is still a LOT of work to be done. Due to the elderly care burden in Japan, akiya's last inhabitants were elderly, increasingly dependant on external care providers. This means that even for a recently vacated akiya the maintenance of the house was minimal, and generaly of low quality - why spend a lot of money if you expect to live another 5 years? For deeply abandoned akiya this is of course a lot worse. Second big thing is that many older homes in Japan have no running hot water - bathing relied on a hot tub and buckets, no showers, no warm water vanity. Third issue is that most older japanese homes are terribly insulated and very drafty, by design, so they are not going to provide a comfortable existence to anyone without extensive retrofitting, modifications (new floors, walls, windows, sliding doors) to block off the draftiness, and then of course you will need to find another way to ventillate the walls because otherwise your beautiful renovated no longer akiya will rot from within. Then there is electricity - many older homes have very few power outlets with very low current rating so you cannot just add modern appliances or heat pumps without redoing the wiring and adding individual electrical circuits. And lastly and importantly, make sure you fix the water drainage both from the roof and dig out the old drains which are inevitably covered by what already became humus so you will need to look for them. And finally, many akiyas are inside hazard zones (flooding, landslides, earthquakes, etc.) so make sure you check that the one you want is not inside it. In short, buying an akiya is approximately 1/10th of the cost involved in making it livable.

And finally, finally make sure you understand the visa limitations, and understand and accept that nothing is permanent so plan ahead.

I came here from your insta link and just wanted to say that this was a really interesting video. I appreciated how you managed to stay quite neutral while explaining the negative and hidden sides of the issue. I subscribed!

Tokyo Llama did a fantastic job with his family's akiya. Buuuut, they've also spent upwards of $300,000 and at least 3 years fixing it and they're still not totally done.
People also don't factor in how difficult and expensive it is to clear old belongings and garbage out of akiya. They're not familiar with how things work in Japan. Getting an akiya up to earthquake safety standards is also tough. Maybe the house was free, but you're not going to be able to make it livable for free. Things like plumbing, heating, cooling, and taxes work differently in Japan. Neighborhood duties and resident responsibilities are different in Japan and taken very seriously. Owning property in Japan also doesn't guarantee you'll get a resident visa. Also, let's not fill the whole world with crappy short term rentals. That's half the reason for the housing crisis in places like the US. Investors buying up property to rent. Neighbors hate these rentals. Not a week goes by in the city where I live in the US without a news story about some drama going down in a short-term rental. I'll never use short-term rentals. Long story short, don't do this unless you know what you're doing, have familiarity with Japanese culture and language, have a lot of money to properly fix a place, and plan to be a good neighbor in Japan.

Great video! Any legislation that makes turning empty homes into Airbnb properties and holiday homes more difficult absolutely gets my thumbs up!