Tokyo is brimming with stories that send a chill down the spine. Ryua experiences one on a daily basis. From her very first visit to this apartment in the Japanese capital, the young woman recounts to the BBC, on Friday, October 30, that she sensed something was off. She recalls that a man stood there, fixing her with a dark gaze. The real estate agent, for his part, saw absolutely nothing. Rather than flee, this young aidoru, or performer in the entertainment world, decided to move in anyway.
“I’m a bit of a nonconformist, so I decided to befriend this peculiar male ghost,” she explains. Four years later, she still lives in the same studio where she hears spectral voices and footsteps. Far beyond Halloween folklore, Japan holds a singular relationship with spirits, such as the yōkai.
No Hiding the Property’s History
In the Land of the Rising Sun, there is a whole vocabulary tied to paranormal phenomena and even a term for those tormented spirits who refuse to leave: yuurei. These wandering souls are thought to be people who died under violent or tragic circumstances, who took their own lives, fell victim to murder, or died alone in their homes. For buyers or tenants who aren’t particularly superstitious, this belief opens the door to advantageous deals.
When searching for housing in Japan, it isn’t surprising to come across a category of discounted properties, the jiko bukken (literally “stigmatized or incident-related properties” in French). In line with government guidelines in force since 2021, real estate agencies are required to disclose to buyers any tragedy that occurred there resulting in a disappearance.
This transparency, mandatory for three years for rentals and indefinitely for sales, makes a big difference for the wallet. In Ryua’s case, she had been told clearly that a man had committed suicide in her 25-square-meter studio, located in the trendy Setagaya district. She pays 45,000 yen per month, about 254 euros, versus the usual 62,000 yen asked for such a property. A discount of nearly 30%!
Oshimaland, a site specialized in these transactions
The Tokyo-based real estate agent Erik Oskamp confirms that Japanese people are particularly reluctant when faced with these offers. If an apartment near a cemetery struggles to find a buyer, it’s even more difficult when the dwelling is one in which someone has died by suicide. When they learn about it afterward, most tenants quickly pack their bags.
This cultural reluctance sometimes benefits different profiles, such as Diane Tincher, an American who has lived in Japan for nearly forty years. In Kagoshima’s rural region in the southwest, she was able to acquire a large three-bedroom house for about half the usual price, solely because an elderly woman had died there. She says she does not believe in ghosts, but concedes that the Japanese do hold firm beliefs about them. “If there is a ghost, I am grateful to it every day… to live in such a splendid and affordable house”, she jokes in a BBC interview.
To hunt down this rare gem, Diane Tincher turned to the Internet. Launched in 2005, Oshimaland is a site dedicated to crowd-sourced listings of these “stigmatized properties” across Japan, and now also internationally. In the past, these homes had little appeal, but the surge in real estate prices and the cost of living has given them renewed visibility. A 2025 survey reveals that more than half of Japanese people today say they would be willing to rent a jiko bukken if the rent remains sufficiently enticing.
