Japanese government is selling houses for $500 to populate rural areas

Re:Japanese government is selling houses for $500 to populat... by lhorie on Monday May 31, 2021 @03:50PM (#27347515)

It's probably not as romanticizing as you expect.

Watch the beginning of Totoro to get an idea of what an abandoned house in rural Japan looks like (rundown, in the middle of nowhere). Vacation homes anywhere get quite dusty in a mere week, so you'd be looking at a spring cleaning event on every trip (very much like in the movie).

Bear in mind also that flight tickets to Japan aren't exactly cheap either; you can get a week worth of hotel stays in the US for the price of the round trip flight from US to Japan.

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Re:Japanese government is selling houses for $500 to populat... by string on Monday May 31, 2021 @07:08PM (#27349090)

That's funny, I always think of the house in My Neighbour Totoro as probably the most idyllic place I could imagine. I'd swap my place in relatively central London for it in a heartbeat.

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Re:Japanese government is selling houses for $500 to populat... by lhorie on Monday May 31, 2021 @08:26PM (#27349550)

Idyllic yes, but my point was that it took a good scrubbing to get to that point

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Re:Japanese government is selling houses for $500 to populat... by dheera on Monday May 31, 2021 @04:40PM (#27347857)

I mean yes, they aren't cheap, I've been there a couple of times before, but lodging costs in Japan are sky high as well, which is more my intention.

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Re:Japanese government is selling houses for $500 to populat... by lhorie on Monday May 31, 2021 @06:26PM (#27348737)

Well, if your idea of chilling is being away from civilization w/ moderate amounts of physical labor, then rather than acquiring a rural abandoned property, a possibly less committed option with more flexibility for tourism is camping.

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