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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.

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.

Tons of places like that in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsyltucky, and all over the Midwest US. My girlfriend was scrolling through them talking about selling her house and buying one of those places on a big plot of land and thank fucking Jeebus I talked her out of it. I was like "babe, have you never seen the cinematic masterpiece 'The Money Pit' with Tom Hanks?"

Can confirm.

There's properties about 2 hours drive from where I am in Western Australia that are unsellable.

There would've been 100 people living in a community there in the past but now it's just a few old people waiting to die.

When someone does die the houses just end up being abandoned because you can't even get an agent to drive out there and put up a for sale sign.

The interesting part about a bunch of the homes in more rural Japan is that they're not actually condemned or shit holes. They're old and would definitely need some love and attention but their population hasn't been at replacement levels for a long time and people would rather live in a big city where they have access to all of the things so slowly and steadily the outer Fringe population areas in Japan have ben getting more and more empty leaving perfectly good houses to sit vacant for years. That's not to say that there aren't shit holes that aren't worth the time it takes to go see them but a large portion of them are actually quite nice.

That place is abandoned likely because the farmer who lived there died or went into a senior care facility. There are houses like this one all over the world in rural areas and I can guarantee two things: poor infrastructure and septic tanks. The reason it's cheap is because no developer wants an undeveloped lot.

I think those first 2 cancel each other out.

It’s not that bad

Looking on maps it’s in a rural area but not that rural. The house is situated on the outskirts of a town, basically

Local middle schools website says they had 185 students in 2020, that’s pretty good for rural Japan

About a 30m walk from the town/school. Train station there, bunch of cafes, konbini.

It’s not going to be living in Tokyo obviously but there are rural areas in Japan that are far worse, where the school is 7 kids that all share a classroom even though they’re mixed grade 2-9 because the district has 1 teacher

Bigger reason for me: that house is decrepit and Japan experiences more natural disasters than pretty much any other country. Like I’m not living in a crap shack when the next earthquake, typhoon, or tsunami inevitably hits

The language isn’t that hard though. プラス、それからもっと漫画を読めるよ。

Japanese houses in particular are basically a consumable. They are designed for a very short lifetime compared to pretty much any other developed country.

The average wooden house there lasts 21 years.

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

Oh to be a thousandaire