Why are there 9 million empty houses in Japan?

(CNN) — The number of vacant homes in Japan has risen to a record nine million, more than enough for every person in New York City, as the East Asian country grapples with its ever-shrinking population.

Abandoned houses in Japan are known as “akiya”, a term that usually refers to abandoned residential houses hidden in rural areas.

But major cities like Tokyo and Kyoto are seeing more akia, and that’s a problem for a government that is already dealing with an aging population and a worrying decline in the number of children born each year.

“This is a symptom of Japan’s declining population,” said Jeffrey Hall, a professor at Kanda University of International Studies in Chiba. “It’s not really a problem of building too many houses,” he said, but “a problem of not enough people.”

According to data compiled by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 14% of all residential properties in Japan are vacant.

The figures include second homes and homes left vacant for other reasons, including temporarily vacant properties while their owners work abroad.

Not all are left to waste like the traditional akia, whose growing numbers present a host of other problems for governments and communities, experts told CNN.

These include stifling efforts to revitalize decaying cities, creating potential hazards due to lack of maintenance, and increasing risks to rescuers during disasters in a country prone to earthquakes and tsunamis.

extra housing problem

Akia are often passed down from generation to generation. But CNN experts said that with Japan’s fertility rate declining, many people have no heirs left to give, or they are inheriting younger generations who have moved to cities and are unable to return to rural areas. See very little value.

Some houses are in administrative limbo as local authorities do not know who the owners are due to lack of records, he said.

This makes it difficult for governments to rejuvenate rapidly aging rural communities, hampering efforts to attract young people interested in alternative lifestyles or investors looking for bargains.

Under Japan’s tax policies, some homeowners often find it cheaper to maintain the home than demolish it for redevelopment.

And even if the owners want to sell, they may have trouble finding a buyer, said Hall, of Canda University.

“Many of these homes are isolated from access to public transportation, health care, and even convenience stores,” he said.

Videos showing people, mainly foreigners, taking cheap Japanese houses and turning them into stylish guesthouses and cafes have gained popularity on social media in recent years, but Hall warned it’s not as easy as it seems. .

“The truth is that most of these houses are not being sold to foreigners, or the amount of administrative work and regulations behind it is not easy for someone who does not speak Japanese and reads Japanese very well,” They said. Said.

“They won’t be able to get these houses cheap.”

Very few people

Japan’s population has been declining for several years: at the last count in 2022, the population had dropped by more than 800,000 from the previous year to 125.4 million.

In 2023, the number of new births declined for the eighth consecutive year, reaching an all-time low, according to official data.

Japan’s birth rate has hovered around 1.3 for years, far from the 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population, and last week Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said the number of children under 15 was down 43 percent for a consecutive year. The year has fallen to a record low. About 14 million as of April 1.

All this means that the problem of too many houses and not enough people will persist for some time.

Yuki Akiyama, a professor at the School of Architecture and Urban Design at Tokyo City University, says vacant homes have caused problems in the past, for example after a 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck the Noto Peninsula in central Ishikawa Prefecture in January.

The area where the earthquake occurred was affected by akia, he said, and they posed both a threat to residents during the disaster and a challenge to reconstruction after the earthquake.

“When an earthquake or tsunami hits, there is a possibility that vacant houses could collapse and be destroyed, blocking evacuation routes,” he said.

After the earthquake, officials had trouble deciding which damaged properties they could clean up because there was a lack of clarity over their ownership, which “hindered reconstruction,” Akiyama said.

The professor said that in other rural areas where the number of vacant houses is high, development has stopped.

“Leaving these properties intact will reduce the value of the area because it’s a place where you can’t buy and sell properly and you can’t develop on a large scale,” he said.

“People will think that this place has no value, and the real estate value of the entire area will gradually decrease.”

Akiyama has designed an artificial intelligence program to predict the areas most vulnerable to Akiyama, but stressed that the problem is not limited to Japan: it has been observed in the United States and some European countries.

However, Japan’s architectural history and culture make the situation particularly critical.

Japanese houses are not valued for their longevity and unlike in the West, people generally do not see the advantages of living in historic buildings.

“In Japan, the newer the house, the more expensive it will sell for,” he says.