- 2021-05-18
No one wants a house in Japan for free?
The proliferation of abandoned houses has caused a huge waste of resources. Many local governments have launched "vacant house plans" and launched "abandoned home banks", seeking outsiders to "take over" at extremely low prices, and some areas have even thrown out countries with large populations. The "super benefits" that I can't even think of-"check in and get a room". However, in the media's view, although these policies have promoted the return of the population and increased local taxes to a certain extent, they are only "stoppable measures" and are not as good as they seem.
For the Ida family, living tightness has always been the biggest headache. The couple, with their 3 children, crammed at the man’s parents’ house all year round. Four years ago, the couple shared a free house in Okutama, the westernmost part of the Tokyo area, about a two-hour drive from the city center. Although the location of the residence is relatively small, the rooms of this two-story small building are spacious, which completely puts an end to the dilemma of a family's "snail dwelling". According to the hostess, Naoko, there was not much popularity in the community when they first moved, and wild monkeys often rushed to the neighbor’s vegetable plot to eat vegetables. With the arrival of more households, the situation of beasts' "crime" gradually diminished.
The luck of the Ida family benefited from the local "vacant house plan". In 2014, the "Abandoned Home Bank" website in Okutama Town was officially launched. Those who intend to settle can apply online. The system will match the applicant with the local vacant real estate or the elderly homeowners, and feedback the matching results. The application standards for free housing vary from place to place, but the accepting party is very concerned about whether the applicant family intends to "permanently settle" and whether it has "family continuity" and other issues. Some areas require applicants to be under the age of 40, or require applicants to be a couple and have at least one child under the age of 18 years old. In addition, free housing does not mean that new homeowners can move in without spending anything. In addition to paying real estate taxes and paying intermediary commissions, new homeowners often need to carry out large-scale house renovations. However, some areas will provide a certain amount of subsidies for house repairs.
According to CNN, the phenomenon of "more houses than people" in Japan has been very common as early as 2013. It is estimated that there were about 52 million family units and 61 million houses in Japan that year. Among the existing millions of "abandoned homes", a considerable part is in a state of "indefinitely idle". According to the US "Quartz" magazine, the original owners of these houses mostly live alone-either unaccompanied or alienated from their families. For this reason, it is difficult for the authorities to trace the heirs of the houses after their deaths, and they cannot collect real estate taxes. Not only that, due to long-term desolation and unattended, some abandoned houses are aging and vegetation is overgrown, which will also pose health and fire hazards to the community. In fact, even if the authorities can contact the heirs, many people are not willing to take care of these houses at all-because the location is not good and the Japanese are generally unwilling to buy "second-hand houses", it is very difficult to list these houses for sale. Combining these factors, the expedient measure of "moving in and giving away a room" has gradually begun to be widely adopted by local authorities.
Previous research shows that with the successive years of negative population growth in Japan, 900 villages and towns in the country may disappear from the map by 2040, and the abandoned population settlements in the future can even reach the total area of Austria. Among them, Okutama Town faces the risk of being "disappeared." In recent years, the local government has tried hard to attract foreign settlers, many of whom are visitors from the United States and China. For these "new immigrants", free housing is not enough.
The media believes that a sustainable economic model and good interaction between community residents are also very important. Prior to this, some small towns in Japan have recruited start-ups to set up companies, and supported settlers with strong business awareness to open homestays and cafes to promote local economic activities.
However, can these measures really reverse the decline of the community's "people leaving the house"? The Japan Times cited a 2017 report by the Nomura Research Institute that the total number of abandoned houses in Japan in 2033 may exceed 21 million, which is equivalent to 1/3 of the total number of houses in the country; by 2065, the country's total population will drop by 30 %, then the residential vacancy rate will reach an unprecedented level.
The institute’s real estate expert Shibuya Kamahara said that there is no single solution to this problem. The Japanese government has previously proposed a series of solutions: such as providing certain subsidies for residents who voluntarily demolish old buildings and increasing real estate taxes on vacant houses. If necessary, the government will even consider restricting the development of new real estate.
Nozawa Chie, a professor of architecture at the University of Tokyo in Japan, said that Japan’s housing planning problems have always had drawbacks, and developers often blindly expand construction regardless of market supply and demand. In addition, "more houses and fewer people" also involves historical issues: after World War II, Japan experienced two surges in population, which greatly drove housing demand. However, the quality of the housing projects that were built in batches in those days was often worrying. This is one of the main reasons why most Japanese today are reluctant to buy second-hand housing. Nowadays, the biggest embarrassment for some cities and towns that are trying to "give houses to retain people" is "no one wants a house for nothing."
There are also public opinions that even if an aging Japan is faced with many severe social problems, effective governance will still produce positive and obvious effects. Reuters cited the example of Inzai City and Sakura City, which are adjacent to each other in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, as a pair of "dragon brothers and rats." The development potential of the two cities is comparable, and both have the conditions for daily commuting to Tokyo, but the former has a strong population growth momentum, while the latter is facing a sharp decline of 20%. The reason is nothing more than one focusing on investment and development, and the other being conservative and stagnating.