Am I the Villain for Selling Homes to Foreigners in Japan?

"Keep Japan for the Japanese"

Lately I’ve been getting more hate than usual — and I don’t want to just hand-wave it all away as “haters.”

The sentiment is almost always the same:

“Keep Japan for the Japanese.”
“Go home, gaijin.”

And while 90% of these messages actually come from foreigners, there are a handful of Japanese voices in there too.

Honestly, I understand the knee-jerk reaction. We’ve seen this play out everywhere, Vancouver, Hawaii, Bali, Lisbon, beautiful places become “hot,” and suddenly outsiders are buying real estate, driving up prices, and pushing out locals.

I see it where I grew up, too. It’s not foreigners here, it’s NIMBYism and speculation. But it still sucks to watch young families get priced out of their own hometown.

I don’t want to see that happen in Japan.
But I also truly believe what we’re doing at YukiHomes is fundamentally different.

Why Japan Is a Completely Different Market

There are some massive structural differences between Japan’s housing market and the ones that have overheated elsewhere.

1. Japan has a housing surplus, not a shortage.
   There are an estimated 9 million vacant homes (akiya) across Japan, that’s roughly one in every seven houses sitting empty. According to Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, the national vacancy rate is around 14% and continues to climb.
   The Nomura Research Institute projects that by 2033, nearly one in three homes could be vacant if current trends continue.
2. Population decline is accelerating.
   Japan is losing about 800,000 to 1 million people every year, which means more empty homes, fewer buyers, and even less pressure on prices.
3. Japan keeps building, everywhere.
   In 2024, Japan built roughly 792,000 new homes, while Greater Tokyo accounted for about 37% of them, roughly 290,000 new units.
   For comparison, London added just 37,768 new homes that same year.
   So Japan’s homebuilding pace, even in a shrinking population, vastly outpaces major Western cities, the exact opposite of a “limited supply” market.
4. Most Japanese don’t want old homes.
   The vast majority prefer new builds. Culturally, homes are seen as consumable, not permanent. So older houses, even perfectly livable ones, often sit abandoned for years.

That’s the core difference:
We’re not competing with locals for scarce housing.
We’re reviving assets Japan itself has left behind.

What We Actually Sell

The average home we sell costs about $35,000 USD, not $350,000.

These aren’t in Tokyo or Osaka luxury districts. They’re in regional towns and countryside communities, places where vacancy rates are already 20% or higher and climbing.

We help people buy from Okinawa to Hokkaido, not just one hotspot. And almost all of these homes have been sitting empty for years, sometimes decades, bringing down the local tax base and attracting mold, animals, and collapse risks.

When a foreign buyer restores one of these, it’s not displacement, it’s revitalization.

The Real Impact We See on the Ground

Our clients aren’t flippers. They’re people who love Japan, you don’t buy a house half a world away unless you truly love the place.

They come in respectful, they follow customs, they support local businesses. And the reaction from locals in these smaller towns? Almost always positive.

Because they see what’s happening:
A neglected house gets cleaned up.
Money gets spent at the local hardware store.
Guests visit and eat at the family-run restaurants.
The town gets a little more energy, a little more hope.

That’s the opposite of what’s happened in the “foreign takeover” stories people love to reference.

We’re not extracting value, we’re helping to preserve it.

We Work With Japan Every Day

We work side by side with Japanese people every single day, contractors, carpenters, cleaners, city officials, real estate agents.
And the sentiment we hear from them is always the same:

“These towns need people.”

Japan simply doesn’t have enough people left to keep many of these communities alive.
The schools are closing, the shops are shutting down, and the population pyramid keeps shrinking.

Every time someone moves in, foreign or Japanese, it’s a small win.
Another light turned back on.
Another family-run business that might survive another year.

Final Thoughts

I know the knee-jerk reaction is to hate.
To assume what we’re doing is just another version of what’s happened all over the Western world.

And honestly, I agree.
What’s happening elsewhere is awful. I wouldn’t want any part of it.

But this situation is different.
Japan’s problem isn’t too many buyers, it’s too few.
Its small towns aren’t being priced out, they’re disappearing.

We’re not here to take from Japan.
We’re here to help breathe a little life back into it.

Browse opportunities yourself: Check out current listings at Nipponhomes.com

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