Inside a FREE TINY HOUSE in Japan

this is a zero Yen or free house that is the buying price by the way for real but of course comes with a small handful of caveats that may either completely ruin it for you or make it exactly what you're looking for for let's take a piece obviously it's not as simple as I'm just paying you to the Keys and you walking away with a free house but as we go through we'll cover the system and how to find these places and all that and there's there's a deck okay so there's a washing machine right here seems they were keeping their washing machine outside and the deck looks like it's in okay condition mind you the wood kind of feels like it's bowing a little oh right there it's not too bad but if I lived here this would probably be one of the first I'm not going to jump and shake it would be one of the first things I'd replace let's take a peek inside there are over eight million abandoned homes and properties in Japan and wow this entrance way is distractingly nice it keeps that Log Cabin aesthetic with the walls actually all the way in look at this okay we got slippers right here and put them on I guess we'll start right here with the main room you know what let's get these curtains open and get some extra light in here abandoned homes are known as Akia in Japan and there's a whole handful of ways to get your hands off and what is going on over here we've got a Blackboard with what seems to be an old school desk even though we're in the mountains we have a box full of snorkeling equipment some tools and then some phone guides and Yellow Pages for Chiba also very much in love with this little Sanyo cassette radio player here one of the most common ways is by going through like an Ikea bank which is how my buddy yocha ended up living in an abandoned school out in the mountains of shkoku used in Ikea Banks this is such a typical old Japanese gas stove but with Ikea Bank you tend to have to do a lot of work and incur a lot of the costs on your end and it's harder to find zero in places so there are also matching surfaces that you can use fridge opens I also love love love that this drawer doesn't say eggs it says candy it is a that is a candy drawer how's the freezer doing oh okay yeah we can we can just go ahead and close that I think that pretty much sums it up for this room except there's an entire upstairs section as well that we gotta check out now this place was introduced to me through a gentleman who started his own matching service after realizing that selling the house that his parents left him would actually cost him more than just giving it away for free foreign enough to introduce this place to me and basically teach me the entire system so next up on our tour is the restroom area placement here is a little bit unique and it's got what might be one of the oldest Gillette razors I think I've ever seen mind you don't take it from me I clearly don't use the razor and the bath here this is a really nice bath all wood bath in case you didn't know Japanese often shower up first in this area and then we'll enjoy the bath instead of washing themselves in the bath this bath alone would make it a really nice vacation property I'm a little nervous to check out the toilet there's a whole slew of reasons by the way that properties go abandoned in Japan the most common is that it ends up getting passed down to a family member who didn't need it or can't make use of it and doorways are always so low but on top of the cost of tearing down a property being tens of thousands of dollars more often than not like in many other countries just holding on to property in Japan is not free it comes with quite a few taxes and that is actually a really nice toilet like take a peek at this all things considered that's actually I love the bamboo wow it swings okay I was not expecting The Swinging but where where's the rest of the toilet where is the rest of the toilet itself there's no FL I'm it's probably going to a septic tank then yep that seems to be the case on the plus side you do have a little window for yourself and this toilet is at least one and a half if not twice the size of the one in that tiny little luxury house that the owner custom made for himself so not not a bad space let's take a peek upstairs as with many homes in Japan Stairs Of Death these I don't know if it picks up how steep these are but these are steep stairs so why honestly feels more like a ladder than stairs but it's these taxes which is why more people aren't buying up these Ikea even the zero Yen ones because you're looking at as many as many as five okay I can't even really stand in here let's get to the middle of the room at least five different types of taxes you could be paying and this room is about as simple as they come with a bit of a hidden secret that we'll check out in a minute and also seeing this kotatsu which is a form of heated table in Japan that they use Japan does a lot of space warming makes me realize that there's no wood stove air conditioner any form of heating in this place at all you can obviously just buy those things after but they're they're hand prints that would be creepy if this place was just a band but that's also why I've been wearing my jacket inside the entire time because it's actually colder in here right now than it is out there nice view and more often than not when you want to buy an Ikea or even get a zero Yen place like this it's the taxes that get you now don't quote me because it's always different from area to area but there's things like a gift tax there's a real estate acquisition tax I think this is some kind of Licensing tax there's a property owner's tax depending on the area that you're in there may even be an urban or City Planning tax there are a lot of taxes and even just finding out just finding out how much those taxes are going to be more often than not you actually have to hire somebody to look it all up for you and of course finding that person and paying for their services cost money as well and that's actually how I ended up meeting Mr Nakamura from the xerian hills matching service I was for a short while thinking of buying an Ikea here in Japan but when I looked into just figuring out how much all the taxes were going to cost me on top of Renovations and everything like that I was overwhelmed and companies like his provide a service for that so that's how we met and there's a phone in there so it's basically just an attic space but there's there's this little guy right here how you doing guy cool little Japan post guy going up the mountain love that I also want to take a peek under the house as well but this is exactly the type of place that I was looking for a little log cabin out in the mountains it's got enough signal signal that you could have internet connection and these stairs freak me out every single time I also cannot believe how many abandoned homes there are in Japan I knew it was a lot but over 8 million and growing just feels really excessive taxes and Renovations aren't the only issue either also the ever-present problem that in Japan houses tend to depreciate in value over time rather than gaining value due to earthquakes and what it does to the structural Integrity of the building over a certain number of years [Music] how am I gonna get down without falling for example I had done a video on Japan closing down one of its most famous game centers or arcades and everyone's like oh they should have preserved the building and they can't the building was simply too oh my I almost went okay they just couldn't preserve the building it was simply too old just the way it works and this is interesting look at all that fiberglass hanging out there that shouldn't be too difficult of a repair providing that there's not a ton of rot but that's what it looks like under the house again as with buying any home really hiring an inspector and having them come and check that this thing is actually structurally sound you're obviously going to have taxes Renovations and little things that come with it alongside the house itself is free I have heard some areas of Japan some of these Ikea will require to live in it as your primary residence and contribute to the community for at least a certain amount of time after purchase but again with over 8 million houses across the country that is still an astounding number to me they're all going to be handled a little bit differently there's no one blanket answer that is the solution for all of them I do really like the area where this house is though up here on the mountain you've got these little like fields of flowers Bamboo Grove over there there's orange trees and whatnot over here I'm no longer currently thinking about buying an abandoned house in Japan I think I have enough going on at the moment but I am really grateful for the opportunity to come and check this out you know I always love a good house tour if you do as well I'm Gonna Leave a whole playlist of them up here if you haven't done so already I would love it if you do me the kindness of hitting that subscribe button and you guys know I will see you again real soon well this is the kind of place I was looking for like a nice log common Log Cabin no nothing is nothing is going well do you like The Log Cabin [Music]

Channel: Tokyo Lens

Views: 3,131,282

Keywords: Japan, Tokyo, Vlog, Tokyo Lens, Norm Nakamura, Norm Tokyo Lens, Japanese, japan tiny house, tiny apartment, tiny house, abandoned house japan, japan abandoned, japan house, Japanese house, abandoned home japan, Tiny apartment Japan, Tiny Japanese apartment, Tiny Japanese home, japan home, inside japanese house, japan home tour, japan house tour, tiny japanese, small house, small house japan, small house design, akiya, akiya japan, free house, free house japan

Id: tneLNsV3oXQ

Length: 10min 43sec (643 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 05 2023