> 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 4 hours ago [-]
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 4 hours ago [-]
This really is a great blogpost, I'm really glad you shared it.
ekianjo 4 hours ago [-]
We are not taking about akiya here but actual businesses. A thriving business would never sell for one million yen.
decimalenough 4 hours ago [-]
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 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
protimewaster 5 hours ago [-]
> 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.
bob001 12 minutes ago [-]
And yet companies file for bankruptcy and get liquidated all the time versus being bought.
colechristensen 1 hours ago [-]
In at least some parts of the world real estate isn't the ridiculous "investment" it is in the US.
Animats 7 hours ago [-]
Oh, a visa scam. Title is misleading.
bamboozled 7 hours ago [-]
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 4 hours ago [-]
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.
bob001 21 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, if the foreign entrepreneur argument is that they're helping the Japanese economy and not just barely sustaining another person in japan then the new requirements seem exactly in line with that?
bob001 25 minutes ago [-]
Does Japan need more small businesses owned by foreigners (that make so little money as to be useless for economic growth) or do they actually need more foreigners to change the adult diapers of their ever aging population?
aurareturn 4 hours ago [-]
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 2 hours ago [-]
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.
1 hours ago [-]
SenHeng 1 hours ago [-]
Better passport for their kids, better and more reputable, internationally connected banking system to store their wealth. The latter bit is particularly important as China limits the amount of money one can send out of the country.
decafninja 49 minutes ago [-]
How would this give a passport to their kids? Isn’t Japanese citizenship notoriously difficult to obtain?
rjzzleep 4 hours ago [-]
Sounds logical, but can you elaborate more on what is happening?
keiferski 4 hours ago [-]
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:
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Or is folks from poorer and more distressed countries looking to come to Japan.
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.