Item — HN Reader

It's my understanding that small to medium sized cities (and rural areas) depopulating is going on now throughout almost all of Japan. One of the things that really surprised me recently is how low the cost of real estate is for an older, normal middle class home in some sparsely populated areas of Japan.

Apparently the declining population and younger people not wanting to live in their parents' rural countryside home is having a significant effect on property values.

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> One of the things that really surprised me recently is how low the cost of real estate is for an older, normal middle class home in some sparsely populated areas of Japan.

If you're willing to move to depopulating areas houses cost a little kinda everywhere.

In Puglia, Italy, in my in laws village (8'000 people), you can buy a freshly renovated, rather huge house for 50k, and you can likely find livable ones, not renovated at the 10-15k.

In US, in many rural areas you can buy a whole home in good conditions at the 50k mark.

Japan follows the same trend, and yes, I've traveled Japan some, there's plenty of almost-ghost towns nowadays where you can buy real estate for pennies as well.