> 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.

• decimalenough

  today at 8:20 AM

  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

  • omcnoe

    today at 8:51 AM

    This really is a great blogpost, I'm really glad you shared it.

  • ekianjo

    today at 8:37 AM

    We are not taking about akiya here but actual businesses. A thriving business would never sell for one million yen.

    • decimalenough

      today at 8:39 AM

      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.

      • spking

        today at 10:30 AM

        [flagged]

• protimewaster

  today at 7:38 AM

  > 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.

Oh, a visa scam. Title is misleading.

This new business visa thing in Japan is just so so stupid. As if people with money can't wrangle up 300k to get the business visa and then just do nefarious things like this, all the while locking out potentially millions of hard working entrepreneurial types from all over the world who would actually make good citizens, and good honest money.

• socalgal2

  today at 8:22 AM

  Can you elaborate?

  My understanding:

  Before: Need $50k in bank, register business, sponsor yourself for a visa

  Result - lots of people just abusing the system for a visa

  After: Need $300k, must hire at least one local, must show a profit of $200k within 2 years. Must be reviewed by the government multiple times a year to show your business is serious

  I can see some issues. If you want to start a company that requires a year or more of R&D before you can ship you're S.O.L.

• aurareturn

  today at 8:47 AM

  This new law is doing what it's suppose to do. You can't get a business visa for $300k in the US. You need $800k in a bad area or $1m in a good area to get an investment visa.

  Why should Japan allow $30k? Doesn't make sense.

  I had a friend who was looking to move to Japan and abuse this visa. The business was only there to get the visa with no intention of operating it.

  I'm not Japanese and I don't live in Japan but even I think this new law makes more sense than previous.

  • sashank_1509

    today at 10:39 AM

    What is the demographic looking to immigrate to Japan. I’m surprised to hear Chinese as my outsider view was that China was as good if not better place to live compared to China, is it because they’re afraid of their government and want a liberal democracy instead?

    Or is folks from poorer and more distressed countries looking to come to Japan.

• rjzzleep

  today at 8:04 AM

  Sounds logical, but can you elaborate more on what is happening?

  • keiferski

    today at 8:07 AM

    Essentially the amount of capital needed to get a business visa went up dramatically. It used to be about 30k USD and now it’s almost 200k. Plus other more onerous requirements:

    https://www.bakermckenzie.com/en/insight/publications/2026/0...

    The result seems to be that a lot of smaller restaurants and other foreign-owned businesses can’t really function and will close.