Japanese Government Is Selling Houses for $500 to Populate The Rural Area

Did you know that there are more than 8 million empty homes in rural Japan that are being sold at very low costs?

Here is an empty property located in Tochigi, a prefecture North of Tokyo. This house is a vacant one and is one of the 8 million houses that need occupants.

Here are some essential points to note:
-There are over 8 million empty homes waiting to be occupied by people, as published by the Japanese government.
-Free houses and renovation subsidies are given by the local authorities as an incentive to the move-ins. A lucrative offer to attract people!

There are “Akiya banks” provided by some provinces in Japan that list the various houses that are vacant and available for sale. It becomes easy for people to search.
Did you know that some of the vacant homes in Japan are being given away almost free of cost? Yes, it is true!The Japanese government in order to attract homeowners and occupants for its millions of “Akiya” is providing them with financial incentives like free properties and sizable renovation subsidies.

-Every five years, a survey is conducted by Japan’s Housing and Land Survey to find the number of vacant homes in Japan. The survey done in 2018  reveals that there exist about  8.49 million homes lying vacant in Japan. The reason behind this was the high death rate and also the tendency of people to leave their homes to move to some other place to reside. This information proved to be very useful to analyze the increasing number of vacant homes in Japan.

Here is a picture of a vacant traditional house in the city of Kamakura outside Tokyo. You can see a property manager opening the window of the empty house. It was found that in the prefectures of Wakayama, Tokushima, Kagoshima, and Kochi, there were home vacancy rates of more than 18%.

However, overall records in Japan found 13.6% of 62.42 million homes were unoccupied. The Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga took up the revitalization of Japan’s rural areas as a major part of the socioeconomic plans of the country. When he took office in September, Suga made rural revitalization the cornerstone of his policy. In his speech in November, he pledged to stimulate the rural economy by pushing tourism and encouraging agricultural reform.

Is anyone interested in occupying a free house?

To make it convenient and easy for people to find vacant houses in Japan, cities like Tochigi and Nagano have established ‘akiya banks.’ These banks list all the empty homes in Japan and offer them for as low as 50,000 yen ($455).

The over aging and vacant buildings in the town of Okutama in Western Tokyo even give it for free. It is interesting to know that these properties are then converted into workshops and eateries by people to make good use of them.It has helped the old owners who were in trouble and struggling to utilize the properties and pay taxes. It has also helped the town by minimizing the number of abandoned buildings that could either collapse or pose risk in the future.

The program helps the city clear buildings that have been abandoned and could break down. It also facilitates the owners of the house to pay their taxes. This was shared by Nikkei with the Okutama government office.The provincial governments have found that one of the best ways to draw remote workers to these vacant homes is by offering them cash.

It is reported that in the northern prefecture of Hokkaido, Mikasa recorded an 11% decrease in its number of vacant homes when the city rolled out subsidies for child and home purchases. Along with that, the town witnessed a drop in the number of vacant properties when the local government offered 2 million yen to those who were renovating certain houses listed in their database.

A program was reported in September through which employed remote workers in Tokyo working in the countryside will be given a 1 million yen ($9,114) cash grant. Further, people who set up IT businesses in rural Japan will be able to apply for a donation of 3 million yen ($27,343).

What is trending around the world? Let us find out.

As a strategy to repopulate, the southern Italian town of Cinquefrondi has started selling houses for just 1 euro. Wow! That is so cheap. Even in the U.S, people are being offered thousands of dollars and sometimes even free land to relocate. This has been reported by Insider’s Taylor Borden and Libertina Brandt. This shows that the problem of empty houses does not exist only in Japan.

The Southern village of Cinquefrondi strategically started selling homes just for 1 euro ($1,14) to increase the town’s population, and that spread like live fire. On the other hand, a city named Locana offered a similar deal with the additional benefit of handing over a cash incentive of 9,000 euros ($10,971) to the remote workers who have children.

Grab a home today for yourself too in rural Japan!