Japan is probably the easiest Asian country to invest in real estate. Except the language barrier, there is no difference between a Japanese buyer and a foreign buyer: no specific restriction nor stamp duty.
Usually, investors focus on three cities. Tokyo for the stability of land prices, Osaka for the high rental yield, and Fukuoka because it is probably the only town except the former two to still have population growth.
In 20 years, real estate prices increased by 70% in Tokyo city center, and dived by 70% in rural areas.
In major cities, you can almost compute the square meter unit price with a formula, depending on the age of the building and the distance from the closest station. But outside those areas, the market is much less liquid and there are large price fluctuations, which also opens negotiation margins.
Purchasing a second house is not very common in Japan, and those are mostly located in the Shonan area South of Tokyo, valleys around the Fuji and recently on the Chiba peninsula coast. Outside those areas and because of the depopulation phenomenon, prices are very attractive. With Coronavirus, the situation changed slightly with a few people exiting Tokyo towards the far suburbs to get larger houses, but this did not significantly move the prices.
Abandoned houses
Media often talk about millions of abandoned houses (akiyas) that you could get for a penny. It is true that many houses are offered for free, with owners getting rid of hit to avoid paying city tax.
However, the main issue in that case is not the important reform work or its cost, but rather the zoning of the land or finding the heirs or the deeds. To fight against this issue, and to recover unpaid taxes, many cities have set up akiya banks, a system through which they publish those properties online and sometimes offer reform subsidies (or destruction subsidies) due to the risk of collapse or fire.
One example of such abandoned house of 110 square meters on a 450 square meters land plot, offered for less than 2000 euros
However, if those properties are sold on the city hall website, it’s often because their land situation features severe issues, such as easements, no connection to sewers or to the road.
Old houses
There are two main categories of old houses:
Minka are old farms. Their architecture depends on the local climate and main crop of the region (silkworms, wood, etc.). They are usually very large properties that used to house several dozen people as well as livestock.
Machiya are city houses that belonged to merchants, with sometimes the shop built-in. They are much more sought after as they are located in the city center, and they were also decimated by urban renewal projects.
Due to a very strict building code for earthquake resistance, cost of materials and taste of the buyers, there is virtually no traditional-styled house built since the eighties. The oldest machiya are from Taishō (1912-1926) and Shōwa (1926-1989) eras. They are located in cities preserved from WWII bombings, earthquakes and large scale fires, just as in Kiryu. Much older minka can still be found in the countryside.
A few websites
Here are a few websites where we were able to find listings or interesting information:
http://kominka.net/ This website features listings from agents specialized in old house through Japan, with many very large properties of more than a dozen rooms.
https://www.koryoya.com/ Koryoya lists properties, mostly in the Kansai area, and offers visit services for foreign buyers who aren’t in Japan or don’t speak Japanese.
https://akiyahopper.com Aggregates listings from akiya banks with more than 6 000 properties.
https://furusato-net.co.jp Agency specialized in rural properties (land, recent houses and old houses, pensions), we went through this agency for the purchase of the house in Kiryu.
Most cities also have their own akiya banks website.
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