Homes in Japan mostly go down in Value like a car, so after like 20-30 years tear down the house replace it a new one. Non Japanese are now buying the old homes, some fully depreciated near zero cost, and renovate them
BBC has a nice video about this newer trend
Yeah I seen those. They look amazing. Could be very isolated in Japan tho? Even if you had the language it could hard hard to assimilate in those smaller towns?
I think it could be hard for some posters here to assimilate anywhere.
This is a good one.
The owner of the log house wasn’t happy about the super low ball offer.
If I found a legal log house in that condition almost anywhere in Taiwan for 25kUSD I would snap it up there and then.
I looked up these locations and they are only 1 hour outside of Osaka, the 1st place was only 40 mins from Kansai airport. They aren’t particularly remote.
You are what you say 
Thing is tho would still need residency, work, health insurance etc. Even so those places look decent. Kansai is a very nice region.
Those views🤩
Proximity to an airport is helpful. But an even more significant issue for many of these properties and their futures may be proximity to a Shinkansen (i.e. HSR) station. At least that’s what this Australian living in Nagano thinks.
Guy
25k USD asking price for the loghouse, likely fully legal with electric and water. That’s pennies in Taiwan. You can’t really go wrong.
Been watching this channel for almost 5 years now. Australia-born Japanese married to a Japanese woman renovating one of these old places reasonably near Tokyo (iirc).
He’s done most of the work himself (wife helps out too). Really interesting to watch him source materials, tools, and the occasional Japanese craftsman. I don’t think he knew a hammer from a screwdriver when he started out.
I was very surprised to meet two(!) avid fellow subscribers In Austin, TX, a few years back. Small world.
I saw a few YouTube channels of people buying abandoned houses in Tokyo and Osaka. They were saying it due to the declining population and taxes in certain locations.
According to the “Real Rural Japan” guy, prices are now in many locations in Japan moving upward again, fueled by some speculation from abroad and the drop of the JPY. He cites and discusses this report:
Guy
I’ve watched a few of these videos. Several commenters have said that trying to bring those older homes up to modern day earthquake codes ends up costing the same or more than just tearing down and rebuilding.
Don’t know how true that is, but many of these renovations are amazing.
It’s annoying that there are a shit tonne of old dilapidated houses requiring renovation here but they cost so much to buy in the first place.
I can understand how you can pay for whatever the land is worth, but to also have to pay a premium for some really, really run-down places is the annoying part for me.