PHOTO: 123RF Lights are on but people aren’t always home – the number of empty houses in Tokyo has soared over the past five years.
More than one in 10 houses in Japan don’t have anyone living in them, according to a recent survey released by the country’s central government.
That means 8.46 million homes are sitting completely vacant right now, up 260,000 from the previous survey just five years ago.
These empty houses are either intended for rental or sale in the future, or they’ve simply been abandoned with no plans for use. According to the survey, the abandoned homes number 3.47 million, or 13.6 per cent of the nation’s total houses. That number is up 9.7 per cent since 2013.
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