Japan's Crisis of Empty Houses (Akiya/Kominka) & Negative Value Real Estate: House Prices Turning ¥0 

That's what they do in my country (in the Caribbean) if the house is left abandoned for too long. It goes to auction and if no one buys it the government takes the house and reclaims the land.

Foreigners can't live in those areas and they won't get a visa even if they own 200 cheap homes.

@@kageyamareijikunThere’s plenty of foreigners living in Japan.

​@@kageyamareijikunI guess even investors don't think it's worth buying and demolishing these properties for the land.

@@olive4naito Who would want a train line in their backyard?

​@@koriko88 if you are European from a rich country and have decent savings you can get a relatively stable visa. But very few Americans, Europeans or Australians want to move to Japan permanently in particular in the countryside. Actually many would love the environment but the difficulty of dealing with language, visas, healthcare and regulations makes it so difficult. Places like Italy are a better option for cheap houses in the countryside. Of course Italian real estate is still expensive in cities and the popular tourist areas because there are constantly people wanting to move there but in the countryside it's different. Many Italians are very used to foreign tourists, most young generation Italians can speak at least some English and you don't have many natural disasters. Italian healthcare is not hard to get and similar in quality to Japan healthcare. Also it's easy to visit many countries in Europe with cheap flights from Italy, flying to Paris, London, Madrid or Berlin is usually below 50$ with low cost airlines. And anyway Italy still has some immigration making it's depopulation much slower as Italy attracts a lot of people from countries like turkey or eastern Europe and north Africa as well as rich retirees from US like George Clooney that retire in Italy. Also Italy has easy retirement visas and low tax schemes in particular if you come as a foreigner for retirement. And almost all public services (like bus routes, hospitals and government websites) are also in English. Also the weather in Italy is a bit nicer for old people than most of Japan in particular in the south it usually stays above 0 even in winter and you get a long summer which is usually not too hot. Also the cost of living in Italy is in general quite a bit cheaper than in Japan.

The kind of foreigners who want to get a place like this are usually poor foreigners. If enough poor foreigners move there, I guess they can create a barrio or a ghetto. 😅

Thank you for your support!

​@@JapanMediaReview hey, can I know the website in video that mentioned?

Taxes were only supposed to charge for infrastructure. Unless all of that will be improved, there's no reason for it. Yes it's greed.

yea that costs 5million yen as mentioned in the video

The local government would go bankrupt if it did that.

People don't even want them free 😆

Who is gonna buy the land?

@@jlee104 he didn't pay attention to the video 😆

Huge difference between furniture and house. Here in Germany furniture disposal is free but tearing down a house is so expensive. It’s the idea that you should build a house for generations not decades

Singapore is smaller than just Tokyo. Japan is an entire country. Easier to run a city than a country. Beside that, you have a good point.

It is a culture thing to not do this

Lol people think housing people will solve the homelessness "problem". Trust me, 99% want to be on the streets.

'Later, a person who has made a statement will receive an inquiry form (a letter of inquiry regarding the contents of the written statement) from the court, so he/she shall reply to the family court by surface mail. In response to the contents of the written reply, if the family court accepts the statement of renunciation of inheritance, a "Notice of Acceptance of The Statement of Renunciation of Inheritance" will be surface mailed to him/her. (After returning the inquiry form, it is estimated within 1 week to 10 days) the procedures of the renunciation of inheritance are completed with this notice. '*Depending on the content of the inquiry form, the renunciation of inheritance may be rejected.' So, was his renunciation rejected? Why?

If you mean the first man from Osaka, it says in the video that he did legally relinquish the inheritance around 2:15 😅

@@JapanMediaReview Well, it said it was a complex legal process, when it shouldn't be; for instance, why would he have to reach out to other heirs, (all 106?) just to relinquish his claim?

I’m not a legal expert so I don’t know the exact requirements =( but in the news segment, his process of relinquishing the inheritance seems to involve coordinating with a number of other relatives (not all 106 heirs). When the government mentioned 106 heirs, it wasn’t advising him on how to relinquish the inheritance; it was asking for a collective resolution to restore the house to a safe condition

We need protection of all humans life from moment of conception.

yaahh 35km from your working place

@@khoirulanam9141 I'll take it.

Have to be able to stay in Japan, long term, first. Not easy. And then, no local jobs available...

I am sorry to hear that. Which city are you located?

Thanks for sharing reality.

@@heythave I'm a little reluctant to give that much identifying info here. Let's say it's definitely a city on the periphery of Japan and has a declining population.

@@prieten49 Oh, ok. No worries. I watch videos about akiya sales and I was considering that I may buy one if the property was in a certain location, and so, I was asking you about it in case your wife will be selling it in the future.

@@heythave We live way up in Hokkaido 4 hours by car from Sapporo on the east coast in a city called Kushiro. It's usually the coldest city in Japan on those TV weather maps. Lots of nature, but the coal mining industry is dead and the fishing industry will soon follow. Only hospitals are thriving here. Lots of nature though (some deer wandered into the city about a week ago and ate my potato plants). But skiing and Nisseko are far off in western Hokkaido.

Logic is not something they are good at in Japan.

Japan government is so slow and backwards. In Singapore, the government would have seized the land without batting an eye. Land is scarce in Singapore and the government holds absolute power and is able to seize any land without permission.

All Governments don't like using logic, it's unheard of.

@@kageyamareijikun’so slow and backwards’ is 💯 correct. Japan will sooner than later be for sale to the highest bidder.

Lol as if Japan gov will do this…They DON’T give a SH*T - nothing will be done the country side of Japan will continue falling in ruin year by year until it simply goes back to nature in the mountains. Just watch yearly the decline is literally unstoppable. I cannot wait to see how it will play out in the endgame.

I agree. Plus they are spending money bothering the unknown relatives.

More like the younger folks, able aged types. They need it more than the elderly. Replacement rate is in dire situation and raising families are important now. But I do agree with you. Government is trying to replace them with foreigners, clearly obvious

@@tandelta6843 why don't the young want these houses? Because there are no jobs around those areas.

The government doesn't want these houses. There's no value to them and the local government would lose lots of money tearing them down.

@@avernvrey7422because they waited so long. They literally waited generations before finally doing something about it. If this was some rural area, then that local government probably wouldn’t even known about it. I’ve visited homes like that. Rural, nature reclaimed it, town grew up, and no one, even those living nearby, had any idea about the house, who’s roof has already collapsed, because it required fighting through thick brush and trees a foot apart from each other. They only get discovered when someone finally takes ownership. In this case, the town itself wanted to build a road through it. But in a major city, as soon as there’s a certificate of death, that’s when all the belongings are handled by the government; any debts and assets this person has. You’re the only child of the deceased, if you’re not mentioned in any will, you now have to do THEIR work, and prove your relationship and why you think you deserve their house, car, whatever. There’s an inheritance tax, so it’s better if citizens do claim it, because they make money without really having to do anything. No claims, then they have to file all the documentation so the government can own it, and decide whether to keep or sell. I get that now that there’s a major population shortage, this may become a problem, too many houses, not enough people, but these people died decades ago before that ever was a problem. Now the house can’t be saved. There was a program they were doing in some parts of my country, like Detroit, where houses were abandoned and in disrepair due to the poverty level and people moving away. No one was moving in, so same issue with population. What they did was essentially sold the property for $1-20 just so people would hopefully do the repairs, or knock it down and start over. They did not wait for the property to become negative value. Most of these homes could have been saved. The Japanese government literally made family trees and genealogy research to find the owners, why didn’t they do this for the first or second generation of people and handled it then? They don’t want to pay the inheritance tax, then they could sign it off to the government and then they could actually do something about it. House the homeless, or real estate investors who could turn these into short term rentals for tourists, because that’s a population that is helping the nation.

@youknowkbbaby because most foreigners are visitors. They aren’t immigrating. That’s why Japan still has a labor shortage. And if they’re looking for several generations of descendants, then those homes clearly aren’t even on the market yet, and may never sell because they waited so long to do anything about it. So many movies set in the US and elsewhere, where if some mysterious will doesn’t appear by a set deadline, ownership is given to someone else, usually an interested buyer. They don’t wait generations.

@youknowkbbaby you really think the US does that? The US has a labor shortage because no one wants to work minimum wage, but we have hoards of migrants literally dying to live here. Rather than spend our tax dollars on processing them so they can have work visas and stay here legally, we waste those tax dollars on silly things like some wall that does nothing, bus trips so these “illegals” can go elsewhere in our country with no ability to track, and of course, my favorite, the concentration camps for children, whether they were accompanied by a parent or not. They aren’t asking for citizenship. They aren’t asking for a hand out. They are simply asking for a better life than what they had back home. Tourists already have a better life. They won’t be staying. They don’t help with the labor shortage, but they do help with the economy, though there is some question on whether or not they’re causing inflation. Having short term rentals for them makes sense because many stay longer than just a week or two since travel is such an ordeal. Actual immigrants that come to Japan for a better life can’t really afford to own a home. Low income rentals would still help here. They aren’t paid a whole lot, but in most developed countries, healthcare is seen as a human right, so they don’t have to worry about medical bills, insurance, and bankruptcy due to some minor injury, like they would in the US. If there’s an earthquake, or a train crash, they’re actually taken care of. No gofundmes required.