Before we ever set foot in the country, my husband and I had already watched dozens of videos about akiya (empty or vacant houses). They tend to follow the same formula: a wooden farmhouse, a price tag under $100,000 and a caption promising a new life in rural Japan.
They were presented as an answer to millennials’ struggle to find a place we could call our own. Housing prices back home had climbed toward something increasingly out of reach, and here, on the screen, was a cheap and easy option, one that came with space, a garden, built-in charm and a location in one of the safest countries in the world. It looked like an irresistible deal.
The further along we go, now that we live here, the more we discover. To understand what happens after the purchase, I spoke with Shu Matsuo Post, co-founder of AkiyaHub, who has spent the past four years helping foreign buyers navigate the Japanese property market.
The Akiya Appeal
Ask him why foreigners are so interested in buying akiya, and he names several entry points.
First, and perhaps the most obvious, is the price. “A lot of small cities, small towns are dying in Japan,” Matsuo Post said, “and once they die, it’s very difficult to revitalize.” The rise in akiya is one result of that decline. Japan has about 9 million vacant homes, 13.8% of all housing in the country. Many sit on land families no longer want to deal with, and towns increasingly want them renovated rather than left to rot and become a fire hazard, which keeps prices low from the start.
A weak yen adds another discount on top for overseas buyers. “The Japanese yen is historically weak,” Matsuo Post said. “So in the real estate markets, compared to a lot of developed countries, it’s very affordable.” For some, the price makes them realize that the money they have could buy a house in Japan, something they could not afford back home, and perhaps even start a new life here, as Matsuo Post has observed.
Seeing the Real Japan
For others, it starts with Japan itself. “Naturally people come to Tokyo, people go to Osaka, Kyoto, those famous places,” Matsuo Post said. Afterward, they become curious about what else there is outside of big cities. That question tends to pull them toward smaller, lesser-known towns.
“You actually get to experience the real Japan, countryside Japan,” he said. By then, the affordability is simply another nudge to take the idea further, making a place of their own in Japan that much harder to resist.
Then there is the content: akiya has become its own kind of genre. Matsuo Post himself experienced this firsthand. He was making videos about real estate investment when one about akiya went viral, making him realize how much interest there was in the subject. He also noted that videos of those who bought akiya for cheap then documented their DIY renovation journey are very entertaining to watch.
The three can also feed into one another: the low price and existing interest bring people in, the renovation makes it entertaining to follow, and in turn, the videos introduce the idea to more people.
The path to buying may look different from one person to the next. The question now is what happens after the purchase. Does the house actually become a home, or does it remain dormant and empty behind a freshly painted door? Do the people whose names are now entered into the ward’s registry become residents, or do they stay visitors indefinitely, disconnected from the neighbors on either side?
The Work of Belonging
“It comes down to how much you care,” Matsuo Post said.
Born and raised in Japan, he left as a teenager wanting to experience the world. After spending 13 years abroad, Matsuo Post came back in his late twenties feeling like an outsider in his own country, a reverse culture shock, as he put it. On the matter of belonging, he knows both sides of it personally.
Most of his clients start out with a vacation home. They are already traveling to Japan often and want a base here, or are thinking about eventually moving. They typically spend anywhere from two to six months a year in the country, whatever the time limit a tourist visa allows without renewal, he said.
That time, he argues, is not wasted on the town. “If you spend more time there, you’re stimulating the economy,” he said. “You’re spending time, spending money.” It is part of why he sees serious foreign buyers as having a role in keeping small towns from going under.
Buyers willing to spend money and invest their time and energy into revitalizing a house, or even a community, as he put it, are exactly the kind of foreign buyer he hopes to see more of.
Learning the Local Ways
When asked how to turn owning a house in Japan into a meaningful experience for both the foreign owner and the community they bought into, he pointed to education first: “understand more about the Japanese culture, and specifically the area that homeowners are interested in having a home.”
A part of that is language. He said a lot of people overestimate how much English they will get by on in Japan, especially outside major cities. “I wouldn’t expect that a lot of Japanese people speak English, like people in Hong Kong or a lot of places in Europe,” Matsuo Post said. Learning simple phrases, arigatou gozaimasu (thank you) and konnichiwa (hello), opens up a lot of doors.
Another custom new owners can pay attention to is bringing omiyage (a small gift or souvenir) to neighbors within the first few days of moving in. It can feel nerve-wracking, especially for anyone who doesn’t speak Japanese, but he says the gesture matters more than the delivery. “It’s not about making mistakes or sounding silly,” he said. “People really appreciate the effort made.”
It really just comes down to getting involved. He advises owners to actually live in it, or use it as often as possible, go to community events, say hello to neighbors and take part in customs that locals appreciate. Those gestures, he said, go a long way.
Garbage Duty and Solar Panels
One example that stands out in Matsuo Post’s mind was a client, an American who had previously lived in Seoul, who bought a house in a rural part of Saitama Prefecture. He wanted more land than Seoul could offer and space to try farming, and he moved to Japan without speaking much Japanese beyond a foundation built on similarities between Korean and Japanese grammar.
The client looked into solar panel subsidies for the house on his own, without asking for help, and secured them. When a neighbor showed up at his door with a clipboard to hand off a rotating community duty, sorting the neighborhood’s garbage collection schedule, he did not defer it back to Matsuo Post. He went out, found the local group leader on his own, and figured out what the job required.
“That’s pretty brave,” Matsuo Post said. “That’s the way to get involved in your community.”
He has seen other clients take similar steps. “The more time they spend, the closer they feel to their new home with their new community,” he said.
The People Next Door
“Just because you own a home in Japan, if you don’t visit it often, it’s going to be out of your mind more often. You start to care less. It becomes more of a liability,” he noted.
For the owner, the cost is more literal.”There are still property taxes, bills that you need to take care of, maintenance and all that stuff,” he said.
For the neighborhood, the burden can take a different form. Matsuo Post acknowledged that from his encounters, some locals seem to have had negative experiences with foreign owners, particularly those with short-term rentals. “If their house next door is a short-term rental and people are super loud every night, that definitely affects the people who live there long term, and that is a real issue,” he said.
At the same time, he explained that from what he’s seen, foreigners who make the news for bad behavior can give people the impression that such incidents are more common than they really are. In his experience, most locals have either a positive or neutral attitude toward international owners. What they care about is whether someone disrupts their routine or disrespects the culture of the neighborhood.
Matsuo Post believes his clients have an incentive to be careful. They already have a strong connection to Japan, he said, and want to understand the unwritten rules of the communities where they buy. More importantly, they are the ones who will have to live with the consequences if they damage their relationship with their neighbors.
Becoming a Neighbor
The distinction Matsuo Post draws between owners who stay involved and those who don’t is about to face a new test.
From April 2026, foreign buyers must disclose their citizenship at the time of property registration and file a residential use report within 20 days of purchase, on top of the mandatory inheritance registration rules introduced in 2024.
In Matsuo Post’s view, the added paperwork can act as a filter. “People who are dreamers, who are not willing to go through hardship, or who think this is just an easy thing to do, it’s going to make it very difficult for those people,” he said. “But for those who are seriously thinking about this, and who are willing to educate themselves, those people will continue to buy real estate in Japan. They’ll find a way.”
We were dreamers once. The dream has evolved since we came here. My husband and I still talk about buying a place of our own, maybe a bit further out of Tokyo, somewhere with more land and less traffic. However, it’s no longer just a house that we want. We want to stay, build a life here and, eventually, raise a family here. The more we learn, the more there is to understand. There is still plenty ahead of us to figure out.
The transformation was never just about changing the house itself. It also happens around it, through time spent and effort made. Sometimes, that means nothing more glamorous than tracking down a garbage duty schedule alone, even with limited Japanese.
Related articles:
Giving Birth in Tokyo: A Suburban Family’s Emergency Ride to the City
Affordable Monthly Rentals in Japan for Remote Workers and Digital Nomads