Pre-purchase risk reports for Japan's empty & cheap houses — known in Japan as akiya (空き家)
Paste a Japanese listing URL. Within 24 hours you get an English risk report built from Japan's official zoning, hazard and transaction data — and the exact questions to send the agent.
The listing usually tells you — in four kanji you can't read. These are the things that turn a bargain into a liability.
If the lot doesn't touch a 4 m road for at least 2 m, you cannot replace the house if it burns or collapses. Common in old towns, almost never explained to foreign buyers.
Flood depth, landslide warning zones and tsunami inundation areas are published by the government — in Japanese, tile by tile. We check the exact coordinates of the lot. Want to look yourself first? Try our free Japan hazard map in English tool.
浄化槽 maintenance, LPG contracts, 借地権 ground rent and 告知事項 (disclosure matters) change what the house really costs. We translate them into a running-cost view.
No account, no calls. One listing in, one report out.
Pay and paste the listing URL (or the listing text plus address if the page blocks robots).
Geocode the lot, query the official zoning, hazard, population and transaction datasets, and parse the listing for the risk keywords.
You get an emailed report with a 0–100 risk score (higher = more risk) and an A–E grade (A = safest), deal-breakers first, cost estimates, and a bilingual question list you can forward to the agent as-is.
Every item is marked OKCAUTIONRISK or UNKNOWN. Unknown means the listing didn't say — and we tell you what to ask.
| Can you rebuild? | 再建築不可 (rebuilding prohibited) · road frontage (接道) · setback (セットバック) · urbanization control area (市街化調整区域) · land-use zone, building-coverage and floor-area ratios (用途地域・建蔽率・容積率) |
|---|---|
| Natural hazards | Maximum-scale flood depth · tsunami inundation · landslide warning zones · liquefaction tendency · designated disaster hazard districts — from MLIT's Real Estate Information Library at the lot's coordinates |
| Utilities & tenure | Public water vs. well · public sewer vs. septic tank (浄化槽) · city gas vs. propane · freehold vs. leasehold (借地権) · disclosure matters (告知事項) · akiya-bank conditions |
| Costs | Listing price · one-off acquisition costs (range) · fixed-asset tax (range) · pre-1981 seismic standard flag |
| Location & exit | Population trend in the 250 m mesh · recorded nearby transactions · geocoded position for your own map checks |
| Questions for the agent | Auto-generated from every UNKNOWN item, in English and Japanese, ready to paste into an email |
Map-and-database platforms (like Japan Property Research) are excellent for browsing zoning and hazard layers yourself — but they are subscription tools built for agents and investors researching many properties, and they do not read the one listing you are actually about to buy.
Paste one URL, get one report by email in 24 hours. You do not log in, choose a plan, or interpret map layers yourself.
再建築不可, 淨化槽, 借地権, 告知事項 — these are facts stated in the listing, not on any map. Our engine parses the actual text and flags them alongside the official zoning and hazard data.
$49 per property, no subscription to remember to cancel. If we state a fact that turns out to be wrong, you get a full refund — something map subscriptions do not offer.
Pay per property. No subscription.
Prices in USD. Card payment via Stripe. If we state a fact that turns out to be wrong, you get a full refund.
Tell us which listing to check. You'll receive a secure payment link by email, and the report within 24 hours of payment.
Yes. Japan has no nationality or residency requirement for owning land or houses. Some akiya-bank (municipal) listings attach residency, age or renovation conditions — the report flags those.
No. Akiya Check is an information service. We summarize public government data and the listing text so you can ask better questions. We do not negotiate, mediate, or give legal or tax advice.
Any Japanese listing page — SUUMO, AtHome, LIFULL HOME'S, municipal akiya banks, regional agents. If a page cannot be fetched, paste the listing text and the address instead.
Zoning, hazard, population and transaction layers come from MLIT's Real Estate Information Library (不動産情報ライブラリ). Geocoding uses the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan. Listing facts come from the listing text itself. Every report lists the status of each source.
If we state a fact that turns out to be wrong, we refund the full price. Items the listing does not state are reported as UNKNOWN, never guessed.
Each week we pick five akiya listings and note what Japan's official hazard, zoning and road-access data show for each one — in plain English. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.