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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.
Also watched a video about a $4K unit in tokyo because you are literally not allowed to renovate it.
Do you remember the title of that video? Even if it's got concrete floors and walls you're not allowed to cut, I'm surprised if you can't improve it enough to sell for more than 4K.
Tons of places like that in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsyltucky, and all over the Midwest US. My girlfriend was scrolling through them talking about selling her house and buying one of those places on a big plot of land and thank fucking Jeebus I talked her out of it. I was like "babe, have you never seen the cinematic masterpiece 'The Money Pit' with Tom Hanks?"
My husband occasionally talks about the same things. There's no way of making real money out there, and there's no way I'm living in a small town/city ever again, unless a high six figures job somehow hinges on it.
If I never had to work again and I was single, I would gladly live out in the middle of nowhere like a hermit. I hate almost everything about city life.
Two weeks...
Can confirm.
There's properties about 2 hours drive from where I am in Western Australia that are unsellable.
There would've been 100 people living in a community there in the past but now it's just a few old people waiting to die.
When someone does die the houses just end up being abandoned because you can't even get an agent to drive out there and put up a for sale sign.
The interesting part about a bunch of the homes in more rural Japan is that they're not actually condemned or shit holes. They're old and would definitely need some love and attention but their population hasn't been at replacement levels for a long time and people would rather live in a big city where they have access to all of the things so slowly and steadily the outer Fringe population areas in Japan have ben getting more and more empty leaving perfectly good houses to sit vacant for years. That's not to say that there aren't shit holes that aren't worth the time it takes to go see them but a large portion of them are actually quite nice.
There are no visible electric or telecom lines running to the house which means they have a generator for power And no communication. And it looks like it might not have a poured foundation although I'm not sure about that.
But the farmer who lived there didn't need those things. Someone who plans on working from home will need such things.
I know Japan is redoing it's electrical system to have no overhead lines of any kind so when earthquakes hit there's not live electrical lines dropping on people.
Either way the point isn't that this specific house is or isn't a shit hole, it's the idea that any house sold for so cheap must inherently be a shit hole. It might be, but the situation in Japan is different than the situation here because of aforementioned population decline and condensation into cities. There are many challenges to buying a home in another country not least of which in Japan is gaining the right to live there permanently, but as long as you do the work to ensure you know what you're buying and that you can live there safely and legally once whatever works needs done is done, there's no reason to assume a home like that in Japan is 100% a shit hole by nature. Especially since technology has advanced to the point that power and telecommunications don't require a direct line anymore to be effective and affordable. Solar power and wireless communication is only getting better and better. Again, I'm not saying that house specifically couldn't be a shit hole, I'm saying that in Japan specifically there's no reason to automatically assume it is one. It will have problems but that doesn't mean it couldn't be worth it if you did your research.Your knowledge is impressive but my guess is that they are still using above ground infrastructure in rural areas because of the high cost of underground infrastructure. Underground lines are usually reserved for cities where they can serve a large number of people and their cost is warranted. But you are probably right about rural areas using off-grid tech, like satellite and solar. But things like home batteries are quite expensive. So those are added costs which drive up the expense of living off grid. But my understanding is that Japan is not very welcoming to foreigners. But you could buy a very similar house in a rural area which caters to foreigners, like in Portugal, Spain, Italy,, Thailand, etc.. and and do the same thing with fewer bureaucratic hassles.
That place is abandoned likely because the farmer who lived there died or went into a senior care facility. There are houses like this one all over the world in rural areas and I can guarantee two things: poor infrastructure and septic tanks. The reason it's cheap is because no developer wants an undeveloped lot.