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Throughout Japan's 47 prefectures there are upwards of 8,000,000 houses that currently stand unoccupied and that are potentially falling into further disrepair, and this prevalence of akiya in Japan is a growing problem.

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To combat this problem, Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) launched a program that endeavored for all local governments for all 1,745 of Japan's municipalities to launch and host an 'akiya bank' page specific to their municipality. The implementation of this program was left very open to interpretation and as a result, while the majority of these local governments complied, they did so in wildly inconsistent and varying ways. While some opted to utilize national real estate websites recommended by the government to list their akiya, many opted to instead present this information somewhere on their municipal websites. In many of those cases, finding these akiya banks is an unintuitive and laborious process that requires a lot of searching to navigate through the websites. 

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AkiyaBanks.com is a comprehensive database and directory of all known municipal akiya banks in Japan. Those with an interest in viewing available akiya for sale can search AkiyaBanks.com by specific municipality name or by navigating to the respective page through the map feature or the regions or prefectures pages. It is through this process that AkiyaBanks.com hopes to do its part to streamline the akiya selling process for all parties involved.

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AkiyaBanks.com is the first website to have collected all local akiya bank information and to have compiled it into one complete database. As of 1/1/22, if a local Japanese municipality has an akiya bank, AkiyaBanks.com should be able to direct you to that specific URL. If one does not exist, AkiyaBanks.com provides that information as well. AkiyaBanks.com can also direct you to the relevant information pages regarding subsidies, emigration information, renovation support, and other resources, if such pages exist on a local government's website. 

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AkiyaBanks.com also provides links to the homepages of every single municipality in Japan. 

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While AkiyaBanks.com does not host specific property information, it instead serves as an intermediary between prospective buyers and local governments and present owners of akiya who may or may not be trying to buy or sell. The database used by AkiyaBanks.com was extensively researched and compiled through a process of accessing every single local government website one by one and determining if there is or is not an akiya bank and if there is any other pertinent information regarding the process of buying and selling akiya in Japan as well.

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AkiyaBanks.com looks to serve as a useful resource for citizens of Japan interested in moving into affordable available akiya and also to those abroad who might have an interest in utilizing Japan's uniquely unrestricted real estate practices and who might be inclined to purchase an akiya for themselves. ​

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AkiyaBanks.com can only direct you towards external information and resources but does not and should not serve as a resource with further application beyond that. The process of purchasing akiya, like any other real estate transaction anywhere else in the world, is complicated and varies greatly. It is recommended that any prospective buyers from outside of Japan (and those in Japan as well) independently do the sufficient research on the unique processes of home buying and home ownership specific to each municipality before proceeding. It is also recommended to have at least a basic proficiency in speaking Japanese. 

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For anybody anywhere in the world who wants to see available house listings in Japan or who just enjoys viewing different houses for the fun of it, AkiyaBanks.com is the place for you.