Comment by jorams
6 hours ago
> facilities were purchased for between 1 million yen and 5 million yen and resold to Chinese buyers for between 40 million yen and as much as 100 million yen depending on location
Those prices seem weird. They were buying entire care homes and hotels for less than the price of a car? I understand they come with obligations, but these businesses were apparently financially ok before the acquisition.
I'm familiar with Japan and find it quite believable.
You may be familiar with the "akiya" phenomenon, where empty houses in the Japanese countryside are sold for a song. The same applies not just to residential homes, but to other buildings as well, and their price tag is very low for the same reason: the property has serious issues and/or has been vacant for years, and will require far more than the initial investment to make habitable.
Here's a fascinating blog post by someone who went poking around the ruins of one hot spring town (Kinugawa) that went through a particularly dramatic boom and bust cycle: https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/983/
This particular hotel at least appears to have been open until fairly recently, but Google reviews describe the "Showa-era" furnishings (read: 1980s at best), and it's on the fairly grim slate grey Kujukurihama beach 3.5 hours from Tokyo by train: https://maps.app.goo.gl/G53KWyCsmeUy8JyR9
This really is a great blogpost, I'm really glad you shared it.
We are not taking about akiya here but actual businesses. A thriving business would never sell for one million yen.
What makes you think these businesses are thriving? It's scams upon scams: the Japanese mastermind buys failing businesses on the cheap, pumps up the price and sells them to Chinese people, who then proceed to use them to essentially scam residence visas from the Japanese government.
2 replies →
> Those prices seem weird.
I was thinking the same thing. In many parts of the world, even a failing / debt laden business would be worth much more than that.
And yet companies file for bankruptcy and get liquidated all the time versus being bought.
In at least some parts of the world real estate isn't the ridiculous "investment" it is in the US.
Real estate in good location is an investment almost everywhere
Good location being the key here
I doubt a house the price of a new car qualifies as being in a good location.
Tokyo on the other hand… yeah I doubt you would see anything cheaper than couple million dollars there