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Japan isn't alone in having a problem with rural depopulation. Much of Europe as well. These cheap houses are not always going to be move-in ready, and there ma

Japan isn't alone in having a problem with rural depopulation. Much of Europe as well. These cheap houses are not always going to be move-in ready, and there may be limitations on foreign ownership. So due diligence is in order.

nicbou 5y ago
The small roads of Poland and the Czech Republic are flanked by abandoned houses. Parts of France and Germany are the same. Most jobs are in the city, as are schools and interesting places. Village life isn't for everyone. I'm considering those all the time when I drive by them, but the price likely isn't low enough to get me to live there, away from everything I enjoy.
- Finnucane 5y ago
  There are places in the US where you can buy houses for a tiny fraction of what a condo would cost in a major city, but the problem are the same--you will have to invest in rehab, the local economy is probably not good, etc. On the other hand, if you can still do remote work and get money that way, you could make a go of it. But it wouldn't be easy.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    And broadband Internet may well be an issue. 5G may help in some cases although my dad's house which doesn't have broadband also has almost non-existent cellular service. (There's a hot spot but it's limited in both speed and amount of data. Basically no streaming.) Starlink should help in this regard. You don't really have good alternatives to landline broadband today in the US generally.
    - Sebb767 5y ago
      In theory, you could also invest into laying a local fiber cable. It's not cheap (think 4 to 5 digits), but depending on the location, it might be worth it.
      - ghaff 5y ago
        It's a ways down a private road so it would certainly cost a lot. For now, it's just a vacation/summer place. It means I can't really work remotely from there unless I can mostly work offline (which I can't really in general) but I'm fine without things like streaming.
        Sebb767 5y ago
        If you are or know the owner of the road, it would probably not be that big of a problem - fiber and equipment is quite cheap and you could do the digging yourself (it would not be perfect, but it does not matter for private use). Usually, the real problem is getting the permits from the government and/or the owners in between; in your case, you might just need to get the ISP to meet you at the border of the premise. Setting up a wireless ISP (posted quite often on HN) might be another solution. But, if it works for you, it's probably not worth the investment.
        ghaff 5y ago
        The road is maintained by the homeowner's association that we're a part of. If I were going to be living there full-time, better Internet is something I would probably have to look into. My brother did look into options (as have others along the same road) and he concluded that a hot-spot with limited data now with hopefully Starlink in the future made the most sense. For occasional use, limited Internet is fine. I don't depend on streaming for myself and I don't expect to work from there to any major degree. (And can always go into the town library or wherever.)
  - aledalgrande 5y ago
    Aside from the cited internet, I would be worried about the other types of infrastructure around me if I was living in such a place. If it keeps depopulating, who's going to pay for roads, water and electricity plants? What's safety gonna be like? Closest ER? There's a lot of things that we are provided with every day and expect to be there, that we don't really think about.
toomuchtodo 5y ago
We had originally planned on moving to Portugal on a Golden Visa (real estate investment) but through a stoke of luck my partner is able to obtain Italian citizenship, so now we’ve shifted to looking for a rural Italian property to fully renovate (“1 Euro houses”). Similar benefits to rural American living (less congestion and density, more open spaces) but in a country with a functioning healthcare system and short flights to most of Europe.
- ecommerceguy 5y ago
  >>functioning healthcare system Where are you now?
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    United States.
    - cbozeman 5y ago
      If you can throw money at a country to get citizenship, you can get "functioning health care" in the United States.
- nszceta 5y ago
  Unless you have inspected your local hospital emergency room you are deluding yourself. I used to have a high opinion of free EU healthcare until I was neglected for 12 hours in the emergency room from 4 PM till 4 AM begging for assistance every time the ONE doctor (no nurses) on duty overnight walked by. She was working 30 patients by herself. If it was something more serious than dehydration I would have died on the ER waiting room floor where I sat for more than six hours because all 10 chairs along the wall were taken, and one bum reeked of stale feces and urine so badly my clothes smelled for hours after leaving the area just from being near him.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    I have waited 12+ hours in a US emergency department to be seen, and my current health insurance company is actively attempting to implement policy where they can deny ER claims retroactively if they don’t believe it was an emergency. I pay for this privilege. Everyone has their anecdotes. The data is clear Americans pay orders of magnitude more worse care and outcomes than other OECD countries.
throw3849 5y ago
I see opposite in EU. Renta in city centers are very cheap now.
- jamil7 5y ago
  Where in the EU? From my perspective it's consistently getting crazier and crazier in the capitals. I also see a lot of cheap rural property in Germany, Estonia, Portugal, Poland etc.
- IkmoIkmo 5y ago
  There was a small rent price drop during Covid in some hot property markets that were popular as being the country's cultural / tourist capital (e.g. New York or Amsterdam). When the lockdowns it's hard to sell a $200 a night hotel or a $2000 a month rent to people who can't even go to a restaurant or museum. But even with the modest drops, rental prices in such cities are still waaaaaay above anywhere else, and the prices are already on the rise again. Apart from that I have no clue what you're referring to.
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    It depends a lot of on the city and whether it's east or west Germany. Growing centers like Munich, Frankfurt and Berlin will cost you a lot of money (1-2k€ and up for ~60qm² w/o parking), while in Dresden or Leipzig you can find apartments in comparable locations for 300-500€.
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
The trick is not having a rural landscape at all. The most depopulated parts of my country would be considered urban in the US lol. Industrial estates, railways, highways...

nicbou 5y ago

The small roads of Poland and the Czech Republic are flanked by abandoned houses. Parts of France and Germany are the same. Most jobs are in the city, as are schools and interesting places. Village life isn't for everyone. I'm considering those all the time when I drive by them, but the price likely isn't low enough to get me to live there, away from everything I enjoy.

Finnucane 5y ago
There are places in the US where you can buy houses for a tiny fraction of what a condo would cost in a major city, but the problem are the same--you will have to invest in rehab, the local economy is probably not good, etc. On the other hand, if you can still do remote work and get money that way, you could make a go of it. But it wouldn't be easy.
- ghaff 5y ago
  And broadband Internet may well be an issue. 5G may help in some cases although my dad's house which doesn't have broadband also has almost non-existent cellular service. (There's a hot spot but it's limited in both speed and amount of data. Basically no streaming.) Starlink should help in this regard. You don't really have good alternatives to landline broadband today in the US generally.
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    In theory, you could also invest into laying a local fiber cable. It's not cheap (think 4 to 5 digits), but depending on the location, it might be worth it.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      It's a ways down a private road so it would certainly cost a lot. For now, it's just a vacation/summer place. It means I can't really work remotely from there unless I can mostly work offline (which I can't really in general) but I'm fine without things like streaming.
      - Sebb767 5y ago
        If you are or know the owner of the road, it would probably not be that big of a problem - fiber and equipment is quite cheap and you could do the digging yourself (it would not be perfect, but it does not matter for private use). Usually, the real problem is getting the permits from the government and/or the owners in between; in your case, you might just need to get the ISP to meet you at the border of the premise. Setting up a wireless ISP (posted quite often on HN) might be another solution. But, if it works for you, it's probably not worth the investment.
        ghaff 5y ago
        The road is maintained by the homeowner's association that we're a part of. If I were going to be living there full-time, better Internet is something I would probably have to look into. My brother did look into options (as have others along the same road) and he concluded that a hot-spot with limited data now with hopefully Starlink in the future made the most sense. For occasional use, limited Internet is fine. I don't depend on streaming for myself and I don't expect to work from there to any major degree. (And can always go into the town library or wherever.)
- aledalgrande 5y ago
  Aside from the cited internet, I would be worried about the other types of infrastructure around me if I was living in such a place. If it keeps depopulating, who's going to pay for roads, water and electricity plants? What's safety gonna be like? Closest ER? There's a lot of things that we are provided with every day and expect to be there, that we don't really think about.

toomuchtodo 5y ago

We had originally planned on moving to Portugal on a Golden Visa (real estate investment) but through a stoke of luck my partner is able to obtain Italian citizenship, so now we’ve shifted to looking for a rural Italian property to fully renovate (“1 Euro houses”). Similar benefits to rural American living (less congestion and density, more open spaces) but in a country with a functioning healthcare system and short flights to most of Europe.

ecommerceguy 5y ago
>>functioning healthcare system Where are you now?
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  United States.
  - cbozeman 5y ago
    If you can throw money at a country to get citizenship, you can get "functioning health care" in the United States.
nszceta 5y ago
Unless you have inspected your local hospital emergency room you are deluding yourself. I used to have a high opinion of free EU healthcare until I was neglected for 12 hours in the emergency room from 4 PM till 4 AM begging for assistance every time the ONE doctor (no nurses) on duty overnight walked by. She was working 30 patients by herself. If it was something more serious than dehydration I would have died on the ER waiting room floor where I sat for more than six hours because all 10 chairs along the wall were taken, and one bum reeked of stale feces and urine so badly my clothes smelled for hours after leaving the area just from being near him.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  I have waited 12+ hours in a US emergency department to be seen, and my current health insurance company is actively attempting to implement policy where they can deny ER claims retroactively if they don’t believe it was an emergency. I pay for this privilege. Everyone has their anecdotes. The data is clear Americans pay orders of magnitude more worse care and outcomes than other OECD countries.

throw3849 5y ago

I see opposite in EU. Renta in city centers are very cheap now.

jamil7 5y ago
Where in the EU? From my perspective it's consistently getting crazier and crazier in the capitals. I also see a lot of cheap rural property in Germany, Estonia, Portugal, Poland etc.
IkmoIkmo 5y ago
There was a small rent price drop during Covid in some hot property markets that were popular as being the country's cultural / tourist capital (e.g. New York or Amsterdam). When the lockdowns it's hard to sell a $200 a night hotel or a $2000 a month rent to people who can't even go to a restaurant or museum. But even with the modest drops, rental prices in such cities are still waaaaaay above anywhere else, and the prices are already on the rise again. Apart from that I have no clue what you're referring to.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  It depends a lot of on the city and whether it's east or west Germany. Growing centers like Munich, Frankfurt and Berlin will cost you a lot of money (1-2k€ and up for ~60qm² w/o parking), while in Dresden or Leipzig you can find apartments in comparable locations for 300-500€.

MomoXenosaga 5y ago

The trick is not having a rural landscape at all. The most depopulated parts of my country would be considered urban in the US lol. Industrial estates, railways, highways...