Astro Hacker News - Care homes and hotels in Japan shut as expansion strategy unravels

jorams |next [-]

> 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 |root |parent |next [-]

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 |root |parent |next [-]

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

ekianjo |root |parent |previous [-]

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

decimalenough |root |parent [-]

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.

protimewaster |root |parent |previous [-]

> 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.

Animats |next |previous [-]

Oh, a visa scam. Title is misleading.

bamboozled |previous [-]

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 |root |parent |next [-]

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 |root |parent |next |previous [-]

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.

rjzzleep |root |parent |previous [-]

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

keiferski |root |parent [-]

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.