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Because Japanese visa will never allow for you to live there

You can get 180 days total per year in two sets of 90 so to live in this house you'd have to:

1. live there for 3 months
2. leave Japan
3. live there for 3 more months
4. leave Japan for 6 months and have someone look after your house.

This is no way sustainable not to mention as a tourist you wouldn't have access to anything that requires full residency which is very complicated.

You can get long term visa like education or business investment or work permit etc but those are really expensive and can be very hard to get.

I'd have to be near retirement age while still nimble enough to renovate it and hope my pension and savings would be enough to cover the costs.

Even then, it would be difficult to navigate renovations in that environment where you don't speak the language, have no idea how their houses are supposed to be built, waste disposal and the myriad of other issues that will surely arise.

Getting a job is going to be a bitch - thus the retirement age requirement.
Getting citizenship is going to be an even bigger a bitch.
I'd be an outcast cause of my skin color and inability to communicate.

Will I meet the Totoro?

If you think it's a good deal, You could've bought one in Detroit for $1

I wish I had that kind of money.

I can imagine this would make your taxes wacky

Because you have to pay taxes including the very incredibly expensive purchase tax and annual property tax. And you lack a visa.

https://i.imgur.com/5A2rOI8.png

That's a 3.5k shed with no utilities is probably why. Running power, gas and plumbing to that place would cost more than a town of houses.

because it's falling apart and needs a lot of investment to renovate and make it habitable.

I understand the Japanese don't like old houses. Homes are regularly torn down and rebuilt. Do some research, but it might not cost as much as in the West to rebuild.

Hey if this also gives me a path to residency...

I could feasibly make $4k pretty quickly, I want my own home, and I've always wanted to visit Japan... 🤔