Japan’s invisible problem: enough empty homes to house Hong Kong and no known owners

At the dizzy heights of Japan’s bubble economy, the land around the Imperial Palace in Tokyo was estimated to be worth more than all the real estate in California. In a reverse unthinkable in those heady days, there are now millions of hectares and millions of houses in Japan for which ownership cannot be established, are sitting empty, or even deliberately unclaimed by those who have inherited them.The combination of a shrinking population, falling land values, patchy registration records and…

from South China Morning Post https://ift.tt/2JFAUUe
Gavin Blair At the dizzy heights of Japan’s bubble economy, the land around the Imperial Palace in Tokyo was estimated to be worth more than all the real estate in California. In a reverse unthinkable in those heady days, there are now millions of hectares and millions of houses in Japan for which ownership cannot be established, are sitting empty, or even deliberately unclaimed by those who have inherited them.The combination of a shrinking population, falling land values, patchy registration records and… https://ift.tt/eA8V8J April 06, 2020 at 02:00AM