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Discussion (57 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
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Lots of promised investments, naive local politicians (the same guy is still municipal councilor, gah), lack of critical thinking.
The end result was just a lot of Swedish/EU visas. They had been advertised for $20-30k per family in China. Oh, and also about 100 "investors" + families who had "paid for visas" but not received anything before it all crumbled.
Those prices seem weird. They were buying entire care homes and hotels for less than the price of a car? I understand they come with obligations, but these businesses were apparently financially ok before the acquisition.
You may be familiar with the "akiya" phenomenon, where empty houses in the Japanese countryside are sold for a song. The same applies not just to residential homes, but to other buildings as well, and their price tag is very low for the same reason: the property has serious issues and/or has been vacant for years, and will require far more than the initial investment to make habitable.
Here's a fascinating blog post by someone who went poking around the ruins of one hot spring town (Kinugawa) that went through a particularly dramatic boom and bust cycle: https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/983/
This particular hotel at least appears to have been open until fairly recently, but Google reviews describe the "Showa-era" furnishings (read: 1980s at best), and it's on the fairly grim slate grey Kujukurihama beach 3.5 hours from Tokyo by train: https://maps.app.goo.gl/G53KWyCsmeUy8JyR9
But then how does it quickly get resold at 40x?
Because the new "owners" are buying the Business Manager visa, not the actual property.
“It's a species of anti-blog, as there is no way that you'll get through a post if you suffer from any kind of attention-deficit disorder; even then, you may need a strong cup of coffee and an hour to kill.”
I was thinking the same thing. In many parts of the world, even a failing / debt laden business would be worth much more than that.
Good location being the key here
I doubt a house the price of a new car qualifies as being in a good location.
Tokyo on the other hand… yeah I doubt you would see anything cheaper than couple million dollars there
My understanding:
Before: Need $50k in bank, register business, sponsor yourself for a visa
Result - lots of people just abusing the system for a visa
After: Need $300k, must hire at least one local, must show a profit of $200k within 2 years. Must be reviewed by the government multiple times a year to show your business is serious
I can see some issues. If you want to start a company that requires a year or more of R&D before you can ship you're S.O.L.
Why should Japan allow $30k? Doesn't make sense.
I had a friend who was looking to move to Japan and abuse this visa. The business was only there to get the visa with no intention of operating it.
I'm not Japanese and I don't live in Japan but even I think this new law makes more sense than previous.
Or is folks from poorer and more distressed countries looking to come to Japan.
Helping launder this dirty Chinese money is a huge business here in BC (Canada) and across the world.
So this invalidates what ? I know many foreign people Who moved to Japan, work harder than many Japanese I know and run great businesses but it was only possible due to the low initial outlay for the visa.
If your friend came here he still had to pay taxes, present income statements and pay pension , if he didn’t his visa would be revoked. The new rule is to appease the xenophobes at voting time. It’s as simple as that. What will happen ? Rich people who will actually come here an abuse the system will be the ones they get to stay… this is country with a rapidly depreciating population and currency valuation remember…
https://www.bakermckenzie.com/en/insight/publications/2026/0...
The result seems to be that a lot of smaller restaurants and other foreign-owned businesses can’t really function and will close.