In Japanese, Akiya translates to “empty house”. The term refers to a residential property that has been unoccupied for a period of at least six months. Many in Japan have moved from rural ...

Tucked away in Japan’s countryside, millions of abandoned homes – known as akiya – sit empty, waiting for a second life. With ...

A new model of ownership is allowing middle-class families and wealthy vacationers alike to buy a piece of alluring ...

Kyoko Watanabe moved to Miyagi Prefecture to help with disaster relief efforts following 3/11. She ended up building a ...

Japan's Housing and Land Survey, conducted every five years, logged a record high of 8.49 million akiya in 2018. These abandoned houses have created "ghost villages" in Japan's rural prefectures ...

After all, it stood in a forest of shoulder-high weeds after being abandoned about seven years earlier — one of the millions of vacant houses known as akiya, Japanese for “empty house ...

The number of these “akiya” (vacant) houses has reached 9 million nationwide, or 13.8 percent of the total number of homes in Japan, a government survey released on April 30 showed.

which was started this fiscal year to encourage sales of “akiya” abandoned homes by setting their price at 100 yen. The municipality has been asking residents to register information on vacant ...

In contrast to our housing shortages, Japan’s shrinking population has driven a massive number of empty homes across its regions known as ‘akiya’. Which you can snap up for a fraction of ...