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Comment by enahs-sf | Hacker News Reader

It would be interesting for the Japanese government to rent some of these properties out short term. I’m sure lots of tourists would be willing to rent them for short periods of time. Although it’s a lot of overhead to facilitate, maybe it would allow for enough revenue to keep the properties maintained and managed.

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These are not in touristy areas. There would be little to no demand. If you want to stay in small town rural nowhere there is no reason to go all the way to Japan for that.

I spent 2 weeks biking around rural Japan, away from touristy areas, and it was fantastic, to say the least.

Easy access to Japanese food, small town Japanese aesthetics, and unique landscapes are what made it worth it.

Not to mention that even if you want to go to some of the more popular areas of Japan, it's rather easy to get to them from the rural areas with the excellent public transit infrastructure they have, so if you have a job that you can work remotely, and you like the rural daily lifestyle but occasional urban fun and weekend trips to the city, Japan is just about as ideal as a place as you can get to have that lifestyle.

Unless of course you like Japan.

Even if you like japan, unless you like / intend the small-time rural farmer aesthetic. Which I don't think most people who "like" japan really do.

as seen by tokyo’s ever growing population, not even sure if native Japanese do either

Of course not, urbanisation is a thing the world over.

I don't think Japan is visited by enough tourists for this to work. The article mentions 8.49 million vacant homes.

There's also the question of if these homes are located near where tourists go. If someone's looking to visit Tokyo, they're not going to be interested in staying in Wakayama.

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