11 Things We Wish We Knew Before Buying an Abandoned House in Japan

Name: 11 Things We Wish We Knew Before Buying an Abandoned House in Japan
Uploaded: 2026-10-02T12:04:56+00:00
Duration: 24 min 54 s
Channel: Lloyd & Mandy

00:00we just bought this abandoned house in the japanese alps for only 22 000 us dollars there's been a lot

00:06of issues come up over the last few months since we first looked at the house to now moving in

00:10so

00:10in today's video we're going to be sharing 11 things we wish we knew before buying our abandoned

00:15property in japan probably the biggest question we had before we went down the rabbit hole of

00:20trying to buy one of these properties is visa status there's absolutely no correlation between

00:26purchasing property and visa status so pretty much anybody can purchase a house in japan it

00:33doesn't matter where you're from what visa status you have all you need to do is provide your id as

00:38well as a statutory declaration from your home country and pretty much just prove who you are it

00:43has absolutely nothing to do with immigration so whether you come to japan on a tourist visa if

00:49you're a student it doesn't matter it has nothing to do with immigration at all they're completely

00:53separate so not only can anybody buy a property in japan without having citizenship or residency

00:59there's no pathway to citizenship or residency by buying a property in japan they have nothing to

01:05do with each other so if you buy a property while you will have an address in japan that doesn't

01:10make

01:10you a resident so you can't get a bank account you can't get a phone number you cannot get a

01:15driver's

01:15license it doesn't make you a resident at all but the important distinction is you can still buy

01:20property and most countries i think it's up to like 90 something countries now can spend up to 90 days

01:27at a time in japan per visit with a total and it's not a hard rule but generally a total

01:33of around 180

01:34days per year so you maybe want to purchase a place here as an investment you can purchase a property

01:40renovate it and then rent it out maybe you just want to buy it and hold on to it for

01:43a few years and

01:44then sell it or maybe you just want a holiday house so somewhere you can spend three to six months

01:49a

01:49year and have your own property those are the main reasons why people buy properties in japan but as

01:55i said when we first started looking into this we were really concerned because most places in asia

02:00you cannot own land whereas japan you actually can and it has nothing to do with your visa status okay

02:06one of the biggest things you're going to hear about when you're looking to buy a place in japan

02:10is earthquake proofing and you might be wondering what the hell does that mean that's what i thought anyway

02:15everybody is pretty much aware that japan has a ton of earthquakes they have earthquakes all the time

02:21it's really common here in fact in the three weeks that we've been here there's been a major earthquake

02:26not too far from here luckily where we're positioned we're not in a really bad earthquake zone

02:32but pretty much all of japan is affected by earthquakes now how does that affect buying a house

02:39here in japan well in 1981 they introduced a new law that meant any house or building that was built

02:47from that time on had to pass regulations and be earthquake proofed which means prior to 1981

02:53people could just put up houses without doing any earthquake proofing whatsoever so when you're

02:59looking for a house to buy in japan you really need to take note of whether it was built before

03:05or after 1981 now don't worry this doesn't mean a house built before 1981 cannot be bought and cannot

03:12be lived in and cannot be a really good house all it means is that chances are it probably wasn't

03:17built

03:18to this new code so in the long run you're probably going to want to get that checked you're going

03:23to

03:23want to get seismic proofing checked by a professional and do whatever you need to do to get it up

03:28to code

03:28if you're going to want to resell it one day this also could affect your insurance so you may not

03:34be

03:34covered for earthquakes if your house hasn't been brought up to code which means if an earthquake

03:39does come along and the house is damaged in any way it's going to be a loss out of your

03:43pocket and

03:44to be honest a lot of akia homes were built quite a long time ago like it's not that uncommon

03:50to find

03:51houses built in the 60s or 70s that pretty much have no specs whatsoever no details on who built them

03:58how they were built you pretty much have to go in and check it out for yourself or what i

04:03would recommend

04:03is before you buy a house if you really want to do your due diligence uh hire a professional builder

04:08to come in and do their own inspection they can check for things like termites they can check the

04:14seismic proofing they can check if there's any leaks in the roof or anything like that they can do

04:19a whole check on the foundation and pretty much anything that you think might be a red flag you can

04:25pretty much tell them what you want to check and this should only cost you like a thousand dollars or

04:29something like that which really isn't that much in the long run so when you're looking for a property

04:33in japan keep that number in mind 1981 if it's built after 1981 it pretty much has to be earthquake

04:39proof if it wasn't then yeah it's really luck of the draw chances are it's probably not so we've been

04:46getting a ton of questions in our comment section thank you to everyone who's been engaging in the comments

04:51asking questions we'll try and answer all of them uh one by one one of the big ones that keeps

04:56coming up

04:57is do you need to have a japanese bank account to buy an abandoned house in japan and this was

05:04something that we were wondering as well when we first started looking but after actually purchasing

05:09our first home we can tell you that no you don't need to have a japanese bank account one of

05:15the big

05:15things we noticed is that a lot of the sellers are pretty old school so they're like in their 70s

05:21or 80s

05:21even and they mostly operate with cash the seller of this place actually initially wanted us to bring

05:28japanese yen in cash to purchase the property but but because we were traveling at the time it wasn't

05:34really an option for us like it would have been way too difficult so we ended up negotiating that we

05:40could

05:40transfer the money into the seller's japanese bank account and we're able to do that using wise travel money

05:48which is what we pretty much have been using for the last like three years for everything receiving

05:53payments making big purchases or even just using it as a travel money card and the way we did it

05:58was

05:59i transferred us dollars into our wise account and then i actually converted it into japanese yen like

06:06five days before the settlement date so that i knew that the japanese yen would already be sitting there

06:11and the real estate agent printed off just an invoice which had all the information in it i uploaded

06:16that to our wise account it worked out really well because when we got here it was like 11 a

06:21.m we'd

06:21been traveling for like 24 hours or something so i was exhausted and i had everything ready to go

06:26we're at the hotel literally all i had to do was push send done that's it you got it

06:36and the money was sent to the seller on the settlement date and uh i was pretty surprised at

06:42how fast it got there it got there within like 24 hours and i was also a little bit worried

06:47about

06:48what the cost would be but the exchange fee was about 80 australian dollars for transferring 3.6

06:56million japanese yen the domestic transfer of japanese yen to the seller was barely anything it was like

07:01maybe 15 bucks um i actually thought we're going to get hit with like 150 or 200 transfer fee but

07:07everything went smooth that was the one big worry i had when we got here because we were hoping to

07:13move into this place as soon as possible and if there was a hold up with the transfer that would

07:18have really made things difficult and we might not even be in it now but it all turned out great

07:22and

07:22that's pretty much why we've been using wise travel money for the last three or so years because

07:28it is so hassle free and it's really reliable uh so if you're looking at purchasing an abandoned

07:33home in japan you can use wise travel money we highly recommend it or if you're just going on a

07:39trip somewhere or something and you want a really reliable travel money account then check out wise

07:45we'll leave our link down below and if you use that link you'll get your first transfer fee free

07:51up to a thousand australian dollars or a free wise travel money card just use the link down below

07:59and then there's the weather the weather's maybe the most insane weather i've ever experienced

08:07anywhere so winters are pretty much freezing cold with an absolute ton of snow fresh powdery snow

08:15especially in the northern alps region what's crazy about that is summer is incredibly hot and humid as

08:22well because japan's a little island in the pacific so obviously they get moisture coming in from both

08:28sides and they get a lot of typhoons in summer as well but we were really blown away with just

08:34how hot

08:34and humid it was in june and july they're the wettest months of the year by far and they get

08:40a ton of rain

08:41every june and july but it's also really hot which is really insane and to put that into perspective so

08:46we came and looked at this house around the end of march and we came back at the end of

08:52july when we

08:53came here in march everything was like dead there was nothing here it was early spring we came here four

08:59months later and look at this

09:04all of these have shot up in just a few months

09:09all this here gets trimmed back maybe once a week and then it grows back

09:17the combination of sun and moisture here makes everything incredibly lush which we really love

09:23about it but it's so much to maintain honestly the second you get here you're going to have to buy

09:29a brush cutter gardening tools and you're going to have to start maintaining the property because

09:34it's absolutely insane how much growth there is and because of all that moisture and because of the

09:39humidity um they do something really interesting in these houses and i'll show you that in a second okay so

09:46given that it gets really cold here in winter and really hot in summer you'd probably be right to

09:52assume that they have great insulation here

09:58not the case at all

10:00these walls here are pretty typical walls in japan especially in older houses i'll show you exactly what it is

10:08it's this sort of grainy sandy fiber that they use to do like a very slight insulation it's quite thin

10:24it's a really thin insulation it's probably like this big and there is a reason for it though and

10:29it actually works really well um because they get so much moisture throughout the year even in winter

10:35they get like a ton of snow and in summer as i mentioned earlier they get heaps of rainfall

10:40the real thing they're trying to combat rather than stay warm or stay cool is moisture and mold and it

10:47works really well because this house has been sitting for quite a while and we haven't found

10:51any mold whatsoever we've lived in houses all throughout southeast asia where it's tropical

10:56climates and they all have a ton of mold it's one of the biggest issues we found but none of

11:00the houses here

11:01have that issue because they let them breathe so even the windows

11:07single pane windows but the house breathes really well even if everything's shut

11:13so it does work and it's actually a pretty good design to keep mold away but the issue is obviously

11:19if you're going to be spending winters here you're going to get extremely cold so what they usually do

11:24is they have small rooms and each room has its own door and it's sectioned off so you don't have

11:30big open plan living like you would see in a lot of western homes and then they just have space

11:35heaters in each room uh they also have like a traditional i can't remember what it's called

11:39but they have like a little fire that goes in the middle of the room inside and yeah they just

11:43basically heat up one room at a time and then if you're going into like the hallway or the bathroom

11:48yeah it might be cold but they save a lot of money on power and they don't have any issues

11:55with mold

11:55but if you're looking to buy an old japanese house don't expect it to be insulated whatsoever and it

12:01might sound weird at first but it does work and you can deal with it you can obviously put your

12:07own

12:07insulation and you can rip the walls out we're actually leaving ours as is just to see how we

12:12go for the winter because we don't want to get mold so that's something you need to think about if

12:17you are looking for a japanese house okay bugs here are no joke i'm from australia so i'm pretty used

12:31to

12:31having big spiders snakes mosquitoes whatever i wasn't even prepared for the size and the amount

12:37of bugs here there are spider webs absolutely everywhere you can be driving down the street

12:43and see spider webs all over the power lines i don't know what happens here in summer

12:48but they just go nuts and honestly like the first few days but i don't like spiders the first few

12:53days

12:53i was pretty freaked out but they haven't really come in at all nothing's really come inside we

12:57haven't had too many issues as soon as you step outside into the garden or the driveway or the shed

13:01it's just crazy how many creepy crawlies and stuff there are i've seen some of the biggest dragonflies

13:07i've ever seen massive horse flies like you name it all of it is here especially in summer so be

13:14prepared if you're somebody who doesn't like bugs if you get a little bit you know that feeling when

13:20you see like a big spider or something i don't know what to tell you be prepared and apart from

13:27just

13:28apart from just big bugs here in japan there's a lot of wildlife okay so there's monkeys which you need

13:35to be on the lookout for we literally just saw a monkey laying flat dead on in the middle of

13:40the

13:40road the other day so they do get around neighborhoods like this and also black bears

13:47there's a lot of black bears in especially the alps region here in japan which is why you need to

13:52be

13:52really careful with like your food you can't just leave garbage outside because like food scraps and

13:58stuff like that will attract bears they are real and they have started coming a lot closer

14:04to cities and towns like around people in the last few years i believe they sort of started cutting

14:09back on the culling of bears so they're coming closer to people and you need to just be aware of

14:14it there's another interesting animal that i just found out about last night so i was laying in bed and

14:19i heard this like yelping sound it sounded kind of like a dog but i just didn't get the feeling

14:24it was a

14:25dog it didn't sound exactly like a dog and it came closer and closer and i started looking into it

14:31this morning and um apparently there's an animal here called a raccoon dog i still don't know

14:40exactly what it is but i guess it's like similar to a dog but more like a raccoon

14:46it's in the canine species or something like that and anyway from what i can tell it's not super

14:52dangerous or aggressive but it will come looking for food you've just really got to be diligent with your

14:56food scraps and don't leave your garbage out because a raccoon dog or a black bear might come

15:02to your house looking for it it's currently peach season here in nagano and one of our neighbors brought

15:11us some fresh peaches from his farm which is a really nice gift floyd and i love peaches the next

15:17point that we want to touch on is where you even find these homes we didn't know like when we

15:23first

15:23stumbled onto youtube and we're like hey there's akiya's abandoned homes that you can get in japan

15:28we're like okay how do we find them the best website that we found was called akiya mart it's

15:32actually rebranded since then it's called moco moco now we will leave a link in the description if

15:37you're interested in checking it out it's a really helpful site that actually just like scans all the

15:42akiyas that are available pretty much across the country and um you can filter through it and it made

15:49it super easy for us to do like research into different places what was really out there if

15:55they actually existed we just found it a really helpful platform another way to find these houses

16:00is through akiya banks um we didn't find this as helpful that was challenging yeah they're not as

16:07like english friendly i guess like akiya mart or moco moco is very good for english speakers so that's

16:14why we found ourselves using that platform the most and you can narrow down your search for like

16:19how much you want to spend what area all these different things so like the ikea um banks they're

16:25more for locals they're more for japanese they're all in uh japanese and it's really hard to translate

16:31and we found it pretty challenging that's why moco moco is way easier yeah the next point which ikea mart

16:36or moco moco actually made super helpful um we could research this before looking into a property was

16:43whether or not a property is zoned for renting it out or airbnb so you can actually look to see

16:48if a

16:48home is in the right zone and if you can rent it up to 180 days per year without having

16:55a hotel license

16:56so that's completely legal short-term short-term rentals is completely legal so if you do the paid

17:02version of moco moco you'll be able to see whether or not it's zoned correctly it gives you the answer

17:09straight away tells you yep you can rent it for 180 days and if you're looking at it for an

17:14investor

17:15standpoint or maybe you only want to spend a certain amount of time here and you want to rent it

17:18out

17:19for the 180 days that's a great way for you to find that out before chasing up a realtor

17:23or the agent that's listing it so you know what you can do with the property and whether it's worth

17:29your time looking further into it and if you want to rent it nightly for more than 180 days you'll

17:34need

17:34a ryokan license or a hotel license that's why there's 180 day limit but honestly it works out

17:41great because most people can stay in japan for 180 days per year so the other 180 days you can

17:48rent

17:48it out on airbnb if it's in the right zone yeah okay if you've never been to japan and you're

17:53unsure

17:53if you can even get here don't worry because you don't even have to come to japan to buy an

18:00akia home

18:01you can buy from abroad in your home country you don't even need to look at the property now

18:06obviously there's a level of risk involved but you can contact the seller or an agent ask them to do

18:12a video walkthrough or you can get a building inspection done from remote and then the whole

18:17purchase process can be done from abroad you just need to sign some particular paperwork and i think

18:23it's like a power of attorney so in other words asking the agent to act on your behalf everything

18:29can be done from abroad they can send you all the documents you sign them you return all the

18:33documents and you can even close on the property from abroad so if you don't have time off work maybe

18:39you don't think you can get to japan but you're really interested in buying a property you can

18:43still do it without even stepping foot in the country which blew my mind because when we went

18:47through the whole process we thought we would have to come to japan look at a few places stick around

18:52for the whole purchase process but it wasn't the case at all like we didn't even have to come here

18:56look at this place to be honest but i'm glad we did and yeah if you're looking to buy a

19:00place in

19:01japan but unsure about coming here don't worry you can do it all abroad and we leave more details like

19:07this in our ebook because we learned so much during this process it was about four months for us from

19:13start to finish of buying the property and then settling on it and a lot of stuff like this came

19:17up

19:18in regards to like paperwork and what we had to do with solicitors and with the real estate agent and

19:23we've put all of that into our ebook you can check it out by clicking the link in the description

19:28on our website one thing that i was really worried about when we came and looked at the house i

19:33was

19:34kind of worried about how accepting people would be to foreigners coming in and buying up these houses

19:39and when we did come and look at the house the realtor did go and speak to the neighbors the

19:45general

19:45consensus that we got was that they are happy that people are going to come in and fix up these

19:51homes like

19:51the neighbors don't want these houses just sitting empty and having a bunch of abandoned houses all

19:56over the place so they were just happy that people were going to come in and fix it up so

20:01that was

20:02really reassuring to us and then like i said just earlier we've had neighbors coming since we've been

20:09here pretty much every few days coming and bringing us fruits and veggies we've had a few uh emails from

20:16neighbors saying like welcome to the neighborhood want to have dinner or lunch with us just being

20:21extremely welcoming and um we weren't sure how that was going to go and we've been really pleasantly

20:28surprised and have felt very welcome here and we might just be lucky in the village that we've picked

20:34but i'm really happy that we picked this one because we just feel really comfortable and welcome as a

20:39family and um everyone's been really kind to our daughter and patient with us as we're learning

20:44japanese i also feel like because we picked somewhere that has quite a high australian population here in

20:51the summertime there's not as many tourists coming through that speak english and in the shops we've had

20:56people say like oh they're really happy that we're here because they want to practice their english

21:01so they're really really patient with us and also accepting the fact that we don't speak very good japanese

21:08even though we're working on it and it's just a very hard language to learn but that's just been a

21:13really nice way like an easy way to ease into being into another country because you know we're doing

21:18so many things we're renovating a house and those are all just sort of things you think about before

21:23you're obviously moving to another country or buying a home in another country it's just nice to know that

21:27you're accepted and that people around you aren't wishing you weren't there we knew that there'd be a

21:34language barrier we don't speak japanese we're learning a little bit every single day and trying

21:39to practice as much as we can whenever i go to a store i try and learn a couple of

21:43phrases and only

21:44talk in japanese rather than pulling out my phone but i wasn't really anticipating how hard it would

21:49be trying to get work done on the house without speaking japanese for instance in japan there's not

21:55really a culture of using like whatsapp whereas in other parts of asia you can just text people and you

22:00can

22:00rely on google translate to text most people do everything through phone call here and not being

22:06able to speak japanese is a real challenge like i can't call a gas technician to come out and look

22:12at

22:12our hot water heater because i can't ring him so i've been sending emails and sometimes it takes days

22:18and days for people to get back to us which is completely understandable and to be expected in a

22:22foreign country but that is something that's a little bit more challenging than what i thought so

22:27i'm trying to study japanese every single day but it's a really hard language to learn and the

22:31language barrier yeah that's probably honestly the biggest challenge in renovating a house in japan

22:36we're able to do the purchase of the property pretty easily because luckily our agent spoke

22:42pretty good english but other than that everything has been in japanese okay if you're going to be

22:46buying a property in japan you're gonna need a car there's just no other way around it like you're

22:51gonna need to move stuff around furniture if you want to do renos or anything like that even if you

22:57want to go grocery shopping you need a car and when i first started looking into this when we were

23:02purchasing our place i was met with a bunch of dead ends a bunch of people selling their cars and

23:07dealers were telling me that i couldn't register a car unless i was a japanese resident or a citizen

23:12which we know by now that purchasing a house doesn't make you a resident however that's just not true

23:17if you dig around enough you will find out that you can purchase a car if you own a property

23:23here

23:23in japan despite not having a resident visa or being a citizen you just kind of have to find the

23:29right person so my advice to you would be just look around make sure you find a person who can

23:35do the

23:36transfer for you into your name even though you're not a resident or you're not a citizen i actually know

23:41of a business that does this for people they do charge around a thousand dollars but maybe it's

23:45worth it if you need to go down that route we'll leave the link down below

23:51okay so overall our experience has been really positive i would say it's been challenging yeah

23:58there's been obviously so much that we've had to overcome and figure out even in just in the first

24:04few weeks been really good like the support we've been shown by the locals and even everyone watching

24:09have a ton of advice if anyone actually has any more advice for us leave it down below maybe

24:15you've purchased the place in japan this is our first time renovating anything we could really

24:20use some advice but yeah i'd say it's been really positive yeah very positive we hope you guys found

24:25some value in this video if you did please hit the like button and subscribe to our channel drop us

24:31a

24:31comment down below we'd love to hear from you back to updates on the renovation next week i guess yeah

24:37renovation episode three next week yeah thank you guys so much for watching see you in the next one bye

24:50you

11 Things We Wish We Knew Before Buying an Abandoned House in Japan

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