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The Japanese government and culture hates foreigner. Unless you or your parents have Japanese citizenship, you're going to have a hard time.

I'm an atheist, ghosts scare me about as much as gods do. I would use the money I spend on rent now to build a geodesic dome house. They are easy to build. Put some solar panels on it and get grid electricity for backup. If there's a house, there is probably a well on the property already. I have permanent residency in Japan. I don't care if the neighbors are racist assholes. I don't interact with my neighbors in Tokyo; I wouldn't interact with the neighbors there either. Where can I find more houses like this? I want one.

Because you have to pay taxes including the very incredibly expensive purchase tax and annual property tax. And you lack a visa.

Because Japanese visa will never allow for you to live there

You can get 180 days total per year in two sets of 90 so to live in this house you'd have to:

1. live there for 3 months
2. leave Japan
3. live there for 3 more months
4. leave Japan for 6 months and have someone look after your house.

This is no way sustainable not to mention as a tourist you wouldn't have access to anything that requires full residency which is very complicated.

You can get long term visa like education or business investment or work permit etc but those are really expensive and can be very hard to get.

If you think it's a good deal, You could've bought one in Detroit for $1

That's a 3.5k shed with no utilities is probably why. Running power, gas and plumbing to that place would cost more than a town of houses.

Don't buy these old japanese houses, they're literally made of mud and sticks and have absolutely fuck all for insulation.

Living in nature is all fun and games until you're expected to sleep in 50 degree weather while your split unit struggles to keep your paper box of a bedroom cool.

Most of the time the closest hospital is like 2-3 hours away on a bus that only comes twice a day, so you better hope you never get in an accident cause the ambulance won't come for hours and your only other hope is the only other person in neighborhood: your 90 year old neighbor who you're not sure is even still alive.

Source: lived in one for multiple years.

Edit: also when I say old I mean as soon as 1995 Before they majorly overhauled the earthquake and insulation codes nationally

You’d die when the next big earthquake or landslide hits that home. Or when Sadako crawls out of your TV

The catch is that rural Japan is a a shithole rife with xenophobia, privacy violations, bullying, and problematic neighbors. And that's for ethnically Japanese people, so it's be way worse if you were actually a foreigner.

There's a reason why people in Japan try so hard to move away from rural areas into cities.

https://youtu.be/fjK1BkpOa8w

As others in this thread have said, buying a property in Japan doesn't extend your Visa or grant you residence in the country. This would be a waste of time if you didn't already have that lined up. However, there are countries that do. Some have what's called the Golden Visa program, or Investor/Real Estate Visa program (there are other names, but if you're doing a search, this should turn up decent results). Here's a list of some countries that do this, and the minimum amount you need to spend.

Portugal - Golden Visa Investment - €500,000 ($540k USD) or €350,000 ($380k USD) for lower population areas, or properties that need to be renovated Residency benefits - Residency permit for 5 years, with the opportunity to apply for permanent residency after that

Spain - Golden Visa Investment - €500,000 ($540k USD) Residency benefits - Residency permit for 1 year, renewable as long as you own the property, and you can apply for permanent residency after 5 years

Greece - Golden Visa Investment - €250,000 ($270k USD) Residency benefits - Residency permit for 5 years, renewable as long as you own the property, and you can apply for permanent residency after 7 years

Thailand - Thailand Elite Visa Investment - THB 1,000,000 (about $30k USD) for a 5 year Visa Residency benefits - Renewable every 5 years with no residency requirement

Ecuador - Investor Visa Investment - $42,500 in real estate Residency benefits - Grants you permanent residency

Malaysia - Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) Investment - RM 1 million (about $240k USD) in real estate Residency benefits - Grants you a 10 year renewable Visa

Philippines - Special Resident Retiree Visa Investment - $50k in real estate Residency benefits - Grants you permanent residency

When I was looking into bailing on the US, I made a Libre Office spreadsheet with like 70 countries and all this info plus a bunch of other personal requirements for what I was looking for, so some of it may be outdated. Hell, some of it may be straight up incorrect, so feel free to double check it.

That place is either haunted or home to some nature spirits. Either way thwy'll fuck you up.

• It's in bumfuck nowhere
• I don't speak Japanese
• Building it up to a modern living standard will be expensive
• I'd have to move to Japan

Unsorted list of reasons why not from the top of my head

I actually looked into that property once; there was no way it was going to happen for a number of reasons. I ended up buying a house in much better condition in another area.

I really need to do a video about the topic or something. There are many, many landmines with stuff like this. For a very TL;DR and assuming every single other thing is perfect: owning a home does not give you the right to spend any extra time in Japan nor grant a visa; you are on the hook for taxes, fees, septic maintenance (though the above property may have been a pit toilet; I don't remember), and other bills which will have to be paid from a Japanese bank account. There are also certain neighborhood association obligations, property maintenance, fire control, etc.

I'm sure you could find a cheap condemned shit hole in your nearest rural area too. That doesn't mean that it's a good deal.

It's so cheap because the current owner doesn't want to spend the money on demolishing the structure before selling vacant land. And if it is still available it is because no developer has looked at it and thought that they could make money on the flip.

There are way more complexities than meet the eye here.

Not the least of which: just buying property doesn't give you a way to extend a visa beyond the normal tourist period (usually 90 days per 6-month period). Japan ultimately is still an isolationist country, and it shows the most in its immigration policies.