Japan has roughly nine million vacant homes, and towns list them on their own websites — in Japanese, with no map and no translation. Akiya Letter reads those listings so English speakers don't have to.
Every week our system reads Japan's official municipal akiya banks — town and city listings published only in Japanese. It pulls the facts (price, size, age, location), writes a short English summary in our own words, and links straight back to the original. It isn't one person's anecdote; it's a process, run consistently, across more towns than any individual could follow.
We're an information service, not a real estate brokerage. We never broker a sale, never take a commission on a property, and are not party to any transaction. Enquiries and purchases go through the municipality or its designated local agent. We publish facts and our own summaries, never the original listing text or photos, and we always link to the source.
The weekly digest and the site are free. We keep the lights on through a paid subscription for readers who want more, a guide we sell, and a small number of affiliate links to services people moving to Japan tend to use anyway — always disclosed, and never influencing which listings we feature.
Region header photographs show the character of each prefecture — not a specific listing. Listing cards use location maps (© OpenStreetMap, © CARTO), never the original listing's photos. Prefecture imagery is licensed as follows: