Ryua lives in a 25-square-metre apartment in Tokyo’s Setagaya district. Its market rent would be 62,000 yen, but she pays 45,000 yen — around 30% less — because a man died by suicide inside the property. The young aidoru says she saw what she describes as a ghost when she first entered the apartment and still senses paranormal activity. Even so, she says she decided to “become friends with the ghost”.
Diane Tincher, a 79-year-old American guide living in Kagoshima, also benefited from the stigma surrounding a property. She bought a three-bedroom house for 20 million yen, less than half its estimated value, after the estate agent told her that an elderly woman had died alone there. Tincher says she does not believe in ghosts, but knew that Japanese buyers could be deterred by such a history.
Japan has a term for homes associated with traumatic events: jiko bukken, or stigmatized properties. The category includes residences linked to murder, suicide, fire-related deaths or people who died alone and were not found for some time. Properties near cemeteries can also be difficult to rent, particularly when graves are visible from the home, according to Tokyo estate agent Erik Oskamp.
The stigma creates problems for the real-estate industry. Nippon.com says prospective residents often reject these homes because of associations with bad luck and paranormal phenomena. Oskamp says suicides are considered especially damaging, even when the death occurred outside the building, such as a person jumping from a rooftop.
Agents are generally required to disclose whether a property was the scene of a suicide, homicide or fire-related death. They must also provide information when someone died inside and the body was discovered after a delay. For rental properties, that information must remain available for at least three years; for properties being sold, the requirement is indefinite.
Potential buyers and tenants can also consult Oshimaland, a website that maps stigmatized properties in Japan and other countries. The service gives people a way to investigate a home’s history before deciding whether the discount outweighs their concerns.
Rising housing costs may be changing that calculation. Kazutoshi Kodama, who runs a company in Tokyo that conducts paranormal investigations for property owners and real-estate agencies, said that finding tenants for such homes used to be nearly impossible. As prices have increased, more people have begun to consider jiko bukken as an option. One cited study found that about 54% of respondents would live in one if the rent were sufficiently discounted.
Kodama’s company charges 88,000 yen for a paranormal inspection. He says a reassuring report can help owners recover some of a property’s value, while online reports about a death can remain difficult to remove. In the most serious cases involving crimes, the sale price can fall by as much as 80%.
Sources: Xataka.