Akiya Homes: A guide before you buy your dream home in Japan

Thinking of buying an akiya, one of Japan's cheap empty houses? This 100-page English PDF helps you decide whether a house is a lottery ticket or total garbage before you spend money. It explains whether foreigners can buy (yes, with no PR needed), how to pay without permanent residency, where to look and how to contact agents and town akiya banks, and why the good, cheap houses go fast. Chapters cover slopes, cliffs and landslide zones, red flags in the paperwork (rebuild bans, road access, zoning, farmland), houses full of the last owner's belongings, viewing and inspection, the real costs and the grants that can help, from offer to keys, and owning, selling and inheriting. A Yokosuka hillside case study uses real listings as examples, and a beach-towns section compares seaside akiya banks. You also get a one-page before-you-buy checklist, a scorecard, worksheets with questions to send to agents, a glossary of Japanese terms, and a clickable map of all 47 prefectures with links to their official akiya bank and relocation sites. The book does not sell or include any houses: it links to the listing websites so you can search the live market yourself. Page references and source links are clickable, figures are dated, and where we could not confirm something the book tells you whom to ask. Data as of 30 October 2026