Would you live in a so-called “ghost village” if you only had to pay $500 for a house? Here in the United States, you can barely even get a studio apartment for that price. So why are these akiya ...

Uchiyama Seichi began re-evaluating his life in 2011. In March of that year, the Tohoku Earthquake struck off the northeast coast of Japan and triggered a tsunami that killed more than 20,000 people.

Get these $500 fixer-uppers — so long as you can read a Japanese construction manual. Japan is riddled with millions of vacant homes, called akiya, that local governments hope will sell for next to ...

Local authorities are offering people the chance to buy a house in Japan for as little as $500. In some cases, they’re even giving the houses away for free. The only catch? You have to be willing to ...