The area has been described both as Japan's spiritual heartland and its fruit kingdom. Wakayama City – the prefecture's biggest city and home to about 40% of its total population - is about an hour and 15 minutes from Osaka. ![]() The prefecture of 934,000 people (as of the 2018 census) lies on the rugged southeastern coast of Japan. One airport, four universities, and a whole lot of empty houses: This, at a glance, is Wakayama. "This will only get worse," McMorran said, "because the core of the problem is there aren't enough people to go around in Japan." It's also, he said, linked to the birthrate in Japan, which has been on a downward trend since the 1970s. "The fact that there are so many empty houses is a blight on the landscape, and a further deterrent, because people don't want to live in a terminal village surrounded by 'ghost houses,'" McMorran said. He told Insider that young people are hesitant to move to countryside homes because of limited opportunities - and because of the akiya themselves. While COVID-19 gave many workers the option of working in big cities like Tokyo without actually living there, Chris McMorran, an associate professor in the department of Japanese studies at the National University of Singapore (NUS), offers a bleak outlook for rural communities. The government is offering incentives like $500 homes and tax breaks to entice residents to move from urban centers into rural areas like Wakayama, but cheap housing may not be enough to bridge the cultural divide and the bureaucratic difficulties that moving to a small town create. ![]() In some areas, nearly one out of every five homes is empty. These abandoned houses have created "ghost villages" in Japan's rural prefectures where homes can neither be filled nor knocked down. Japan's Housing and Land Survey, conducted every five years, logged a record high of 8.49 million akiya in 2018. While the US faces a shortage of homes, Japan is experiencing an altogether different issue: There's a glut of unoccupied homes throughout the country's rural areas. The facade of Seichi's farmhouse after renovation. In some areas of central Tokyo apartment prices have risen by 20 per cent - the first real increase for a couple of decades.Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. "The cheaper Yen over the past two years has led to good sales."Īnd like cities in Australia, the Chinese are pushing up prices. "Compared to domestic China like Shanghai, Japan has double the return," he said. Japanese real estate agent Yoshi Tanaka said investors from China have tripled in the past year, and they buy with cash, looking for small to medium sized apartments. "There is the Olympics happening in 2020 - I expect even better conditions then." "The returns on the investment are high in Japan, I like that," the company executive said. One Chinese buyer, who wants to remain unidentified, says Tokyo is the best choice because of a weak Yen and high rental returns. ![]() The Chinese are coming in great numbers for the cheap takings, and it is not the billionaires but the growing Chinese middle classes that are investing in sought after areas in central Tokyo. Chinese investors have tripled in past year It is a remarkable turnaround for a city that a few decades ago was struggling with overcrowding and had the most expensive real estate in the world. The ghost homes are the most visible sign of human retreat in a country where the population is shrinking fast. ![]() there's no jobs and young people don't want to live here." "There used to be a car industry here but mechanisation took over. "Yokosuka once thrived as a port city," he said. Local council planning worker Noriyuki Shima said real estate agents do not bother listing the houses - there are simply no buyers. There is the Olympics happening in 2020 - I expect even better conditions then. The returns on the investment are high in Japan, I like that.
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