- 4 minutes ago
A $22,000 abandoned farmhouse in the Japanese Alps has already cost far more than its purchase price—and the renovation is only in phase one. We’re breaking down the real expenses so far, from closing costs and setting up life in rural Japan to tools, building materials, garden clearing, and major work on the bathroom and living room floor.
The project has reached about ¥6.2 million (around US$40,000) in total spending, including the property, getting established, and renovations. This first-person renovation cost breakdown also explains why hidden repairs, insulation, plumbing, utilities, and waste disposal can quickly change the budget when restoring an old Japanese house. Follow the practical realities of DIY farmhouse renovation in Japan and what it takes to turn an akiya into a modern family home.
The project has reached about ¥6.2 million (around US$40,000) in total spending, including the property, getting established, and renovations. This first-person renovation cost breakdown also explains why hidden repairs, insulation, plumbing, utilities, and waste disposal can quickly change the budget when restoring an old Japanese house. Follow the practical realities of DIY farmhouse renovation in Japan and what it takes to turn an akiya into a modern family home.
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TravelTranscript
00:00A few months ago we bought this abandoned farmhouse in the Japanese Alps for just $22,000
00:04and ever since we started sharing our renovation journey here on YouTube,
00:09one of the biggest questions we've been getting is how much is this actually costing us? Because
00:14when you see somebody buy a house in Japan for $22,000 it's easy to imagine that you can spend
00:19a little bit of money fixing it up and suddenly have yourself a beautiful home. But as we've been
00:24discovering buying an abandoned house and actually renovating one are two very different things.
00:30We've completely stripped out our old bathroom, started rebuilding the living room floor,
00:36replaced damaged timber, added insulation, cleared an overgrown garden and started transforming the
00:42master bedroom. And along the way we've spent a lot of money on things we didn't necessarily think
00:47about when we first bought the property. So today I'm going to share exactly how much we've spent so
00:52far. We're going to go through everything from the original purchase price and closing costs to
00:57buying a car, setting up utilities, buying tools and all the renovation work we've completed or
01:03started. And this is going to be phase one of an ongoing series. As we continue renovating the house
01:08we'll keep making these videos and updating you on exactly what we've spent, what we've accomplished
01:14and how much the entire project is costing us. Because hopefully by the time we're finished we'll have
01:20a complete record of what it actually costs to turn an abandoned Japanese farmhouse into a modern family
01:26home. Now one thing I should mention before we get into it is that we are doing a lot of
01:31this work
01:31ourselves. We're not professional builders and this is the first house we've ever renovated. So these
01:37numbers are going to be very different from what you'd spend if you hired a renovation company to come
01:42in and do everything for you. But if you're thinking about taking on a project like this yourself
01:47hopefully this gives you a realistic idea of some of the costs involved. All right let's get into it.
01:53Okay first things first let's talk about what we actually paid for the property. Now if you've been
01:58following the channel for a while you'll know that we bought this place for approximately 22,000 US
02:03dollars and for that we got the main farmhouse, a separate building and the surrounding land. Which
02:10compared to property prices in Australia or Canada for example is pretty incredible. But something
02:16that's important to understand is that when you buy a house in Japan, the advertised purchase price isn't
02:21necessarily the final amount you're going to pay. You've also got to account for the real estate agents
02:26commission, legal fees, registration costs and all the other expenses associated with transferring ownership.
02:33So while we usually refer to this as our $22,000 abandoned farmhouse, the actual amount we needed to pay
02:39to
02:39complete the purchase was a little different. The total cost to purchase the property including all
02:45of the associated fees was 3.6 million Japanese yen or a little bit over. And I think that's something
02:51worth remembering if you're looking at abandoned houses online because the price you see advertised
02:56isn't necessarily the amount you actually need to complete the purchase. Now before we get into it
03:02there's a few important things worth mentioning. Firstly this is only phase one of our renovation.
03:07We're nowhere near finished and there's still a huge amount of work and money ahead of us.
03:12And secondly we're doing this project with our friend Joel who owns half the property. So we're
03:16splitting the costs 50-50 which obviously makes a massive difference to what Mandy and I are personally
03:22spending. So throughout this video I'll show you what everything is cost and at the end we'll reveal
03:27both the total amount on the project and what our own share works out to. And hopefully by the time
03:33we're finished renovating this place we'll have a complete record of what it actually costs to turn
03:38an abandoned Japanese farmhouse into a modern family home. Now another question we got asked a lot after
03:45buying this place was how we actually paid for it because we're obviously foreigners we're not Japanese
03:50and at the time we bought the property we didn't have a Japanese bank account because it's not that easy
03:55to get. And when you're buying a house in another country you obviously need to think about how you're going
04:01to get your money into the seller's bank account.
04:03We used Wise Travel Money who are also kind enough to sponsor today's video. We've actually been using Wise
04:09for years throughout our travels but buying this house was probably one of the biggest purchases we've
04:14ever made using it. In fact it definitely was the biggest. Essentially we needed to convert our money
04:19into Japanese yen and transfer it to a Japanese bank account to complete the settlement. And because we earn
04:25our income internationally through YouTube or other online businesses being able to manage money in different
04:31currencies is something that's really important to us. And with Wise you can hold and manage multiple
04:36supported currencies in one account. You can convert between them and send money internationally. And one
04:42of the things I really like is that before you make a transfer you can see the exchange rate the
04:47applicable fees and how much the recipient is expected to receive. So our process was like this the
04:53seller actually wanted Japanese yen in cash to begin with but we explained to them that that probably wasn't
04:58really possible for us because we didn't have a Japanese bank account and we weren't going to be
05:03able to go to the ATM like 10 or 20 times because we would just rack up so many fees.
05:08So we were able to
05:10deposit money into our Wise account and then transfer it into Japanese yen and we waited until the exchange
05:16rate was just right for us. Then we had all of the seller's details uploaded to our Wise account and
05:22ready
05:22to go and on the day of settlement all I had to do was push a button and the money
05:26was sent to them.
05:27The seller received the money within a few hours and the settlement was done.
05:30A bit nervous. A lot of money. So I've put in all the details here and it says it's going
05:38to arrive
05:38today within four minutes. Done. That's it. We bought it. Woohoo! We bought the house my love.
05:50Now something else people often ask us is whether you need a Japanese bank account to buy property in Japan.
05:56And in our case we didn't. We were able to complete the whole purchase just using Wise and transferring
06:02the money directly into the owner's Japanese bank account. Now obviously that's something that you
06:07would need to confirm with your own real estate agent or whoever's handling the purchase because
06:11every situation can be a little bit different. But for us it made that part of buying the house
06:16relatively straightforward and something I think people sometimes overlook when they're buying property
06:21overseas is that the exchange rate and transfer fees are part of the real cost of the purchase.
06:27So when you're working out whether you can afford a property it's worth thinking about how you're
06:31actually going to move the money as well. So we'll leave a link to Wise down below in the description
06:35if
06:36you want to check them out. Now the next expense wasn't technically part of the house renovation but for
06:41us it was pretty much essential and that was buying a car. Because we're living in a small village in
06:47the Japanese
06:47Alps having our own vehicle makes life so much easier especially when you're renovating a house
06:52and constantly needing to go to the hardware store. We ended up buying a pretty basic car which is Suzuki
06:58every wagon and it's been incredibly useful for picking up tools, transporting materials and just
07:04getting around in general. The vehicle itself cost just over 300 000 yen but there was another expense
07:10involved. So because we're not Japanese residents we used a company to help us with the registration
07:16process and that service cost another 75 000 yen. So altogether buying and registering our car costs
07:23just over 400 000 yen. Now I'm keeping this separate from the actual renovation costs because obviously
07:29not everybody buying an abandoned house in Japan is going to need to purchase a vehicle but
07:34if you're thinking about buying somewhere rural like we have it's definitely something worth considering
07:39because I honestly don't know how we'd be managing this renovation without a car. So the next thing
07:45that we needed to do was get ourselves properly set up in Japan because when we bought the property
07:51it had been sitting empty for god knows how long and before we could properly move in we needed to
07:57organize electricity water gas and internet. Fortunately we had some help getting the utilities connected
08:04around the time we took ownership by the real estate agent but one of our bigger purchases was Starlink.
08:10Because we're living in a small village in the mountains having reliable internet is incredibly
08:15important to us. So we spent 38 000 yen on our Starlink equipment and it's made a huge difference we
08:21also
08:22needed to buy some basic household appliances and we spent about 38 000 yen on a fridge 19 000 on
08:29a washing
08:30machine and another 10 000 on a vacuum cleaner and then there were all the smaller things like kitchen and
08:36laundry supplies we spent another 30 000 yen on just on those now obviously these aren't renovation expenses but
08:43they're still part of the reality of buying an abandoned house in another country and trying to make it
08:48somewhere you can actually live and they're expenses that can be easy to overlook when you're just looking
08:53at the original purchase price. Now this next category is one that I think people can easily underestimate
09:00and that's tools. So when we first arrived at the house we basically had to start from scratch there was
09:06no tools
09:07there or anything to work with whatsoever we didn't have a workshop full of equipment just waiting for us
09:12and because we decided to do as much of the renovation ourselves as possible we needed to buy the tools
09:20to
09:20actually start doing the work. So over the last few months we've bought things like drills saws sanders
09:28ladders and all sorts of other equipment and that's even before you start counting all the small little things that
09:35you don't really think about things like drill bits uh blades sanding discs screws glue safety equipment you
09:42get the idea. Looking back through our expenses we've spent over 260 000 yen just on purchases specifically
09:50recorded as tools and one of the things we discovered is that it's not necessarily the big purchases that
09:56catch you out it's the fact that you're constantly buying things for instance you go to the hardware store
10:02thinking you need just one item and somehow walk out with a trolley full of stuff and then two days
10:07later you're back again. The good news is that most of these tools should last us throughout the
10:12renovation so hopefully as we move into the next phases we won't need to keep spending quite as much
10:18on equipment and this actually brings me to another reason WISE has continued to be useful for us
10:23throughout this project because buying the house was one big payment but renovating it is hundreds of
10:28smaller payments we're constantly buying tools timber paint fixings and all sorts of other materials and
10:35because we earn our money internationally but spend as much of it here in japan we need a practical way
10:42to manage our money in japanese yen and one of the things i like about WISE is being able to
10:48hold different
10:48supported currencies in the same account so rather than constantly thinking about everything in australian
10:54dollars or us dollars and trying to work out what that means in yen we can actually see our japanese
11:00yen balance and that makes it easier for us to understand what we're spending because when i tell you
11:05that we've spent 147 000 on tiles or 440 000 yen on a plumber those are the actual numbers we're
11:13dealing
11:13with here in japan all right now let's get into the actual renovation costs because this is where things
11:19start to get interesting so the first major stage of the renovation was the demolition when we bought
11:25this house we knew we wanted to change quite a lot so we wanted to make the living room more
11:30modern and
11:31completely redo the bathroom and then eventually transform the entire property into something that
11:37suited our family but before you can start making everything look beautiful you've got to remove what's
11:42already there and that was a much bigger job than what we anticipated so we've pulled up old flooring
11:48removed sections of walls stripped out the bathroom and taken apart areas that needed to be rebuilt such
11:55as the living room floor joists because we've done a lot of this work ourselves we haven't had to pay
12:00a demolition company to come in and do everything but that doesn't mean demolition has been exactly
12:06free we still have to buy supplies we've had to use equipment and deal with all of the waste which
12:12has actually been one of the biggest issues in japan and i think the waste disposal is something
12:17people don't necessarily think about when they're watching renovation videos because once you've
12:21pulled something apart you've actually got to now get rid of it somehow and japan has some pretty strict
12:28rules when it comes to recycling you can't necessarily just throw out old building materials
12:32into your regular household rubbish so we've had to organize proper recycling and waste disposal and
12:39so far that's cost us 37 000 japanese yen now that might not sound like a huge amount compared to
12:46some
12:46of our other expenses but it's another one of those costs that you don't necessarily think about when
12:51you first buy an abandoned house and honestly if you're planning to do a lot of the demolition yourself
12:56it's definitely something i'd recommend including in your budget and because doing a lot of the work
13:01ourselves has saved us a lot of money on the labor it's still taking a huge amount of time and
13:06effort and
13:07getting rid of everything is another expense on top of that okay one of the biggest jobs we've tackled
13:13so far has been the living room floor and it was the first thing we got into actually this is
13:19actually
13:19a really good example of how renovating an abandoned house can turn into a much bigger project than you
13:25originally planned because when we first brought the property we knew we wanted to replace the old
13:30flooring but once we started pulling up all the floorboards we discovered that some of the timber
13:35underneath was actually rotten so suddenly this wasn't just a matter of removing the old floor
13:41and putting something new down like we actually had to repair and replace part of the structure that
13:47was underneath and obviously that meant buying more materials and spending more time on the project
13:52than we'd initially anticipated so just looking through our expenses we've spent 240 000 yen just on timber
14:01purchases now not all of that timber was used in the living room because we've been working on things
14:05like the bathroom and getting that framed out as well and the same goes for insulation we've spent 110 000
14:12japanese yen on insulation which we did record as a living room insulation but some of that was actually
14:17used in the bathroom as well we've been insulating different areas of the house including both the living
14:23room and the bathroom because we're in the japanese alps and winters get extremely cold and for whatever
14:29reason these old houses don't have any insulation so that's been one of our top priorities and while
14:34we've had the floors and the walls opened up it makes sense to do as much as work as possible
14:40before
14:40putting everything back together so we decided we've got the floors up let's just do the insulation now
14:45and that's even before you start counting all the plywood the screws the fixings and other supplies that
14:52are involved so even though we're doing the majority of the work ourselves you can see how quickly the
14:57material costs just start adding up and if you're looking at buying an old japanese house and you
15:02think the floors just need a little cosmetic work i definitely recommend finding out what's underneath
15:07them before you start working out your budget because sometimes the flooring itself is the least of your
15:14problems okay now let's talk about the bathroom because this has probably been our biggest and most
15:21expensive renovation projects so far so when we bought the house the bathroom was really traditional
15:28it had an old bathtub and a kerosene boiler that was used to heat the bath water and if you've
15:34looked
15:34at many older japanese houses you'll know that this type of setup isn't particularly unusual now something
15:40interesting about renovating bathrooms in japan is that a lot of people choose to install what's called a
15:46unit bath so essentially it's a prefabricated bathroom pod so the bath the shower the walls and
15:53floors are designed as a complete system and they can be relatively quick and affordable to modernize an
16:00old bathroom but we decided to go in a completely different direction because we wanted a spacious
16:05modern bathroom with a proper shower vanity and beautiful tiles something that would fit the overall
16:11style we're trying to create throughout the house and obviously that meant a lot more work for us now we
16:18knew this wasn't going to be cheap but i don't think we realized just how quickly the costs would add
16:23up
16:24because our biggest expense was by far the plumbing we paid just over 400 000 yen for a plumber which
16:31included installing a completely new hot water system and then we paid another 60 000 yen for an
16:38electrician to rewire the bathroom so just that alone is already just about half a million yen before
16:44you even start thinking about how the bathroom is actually going to look that's just the plumbing and
16:49the electricity then we spent almost 150 000 yen on tiles almost 100 000 on a window and 80 000
16:56on the shower
16:57vanity taps the mixes and the mirror and then there's all the other stuff so we spent about 25 000
17:04yen on
17:05waterproofing materials 10 000 yen on bathroom insulation and another 18 000 yen just on led strip
17:12lighting and that's before you even include things like framing timber wall sheeting fixings and all
17:19the smaller materials that we've needed along the way okay so when we add up just the bathroom expenses
17:25that we've been able to identify individually we've already spent over 877 000 yen and that doesn't even
17:34include all the framing and building materials that we've used now the good news is that we've
17:39actually made a huge amount of progress we've completely stripped out the original bathroom
17:43rebuilt the space installed the new window sorted out the plumbing and the electrical work we've added
17:49insulation and we've also purchased all the tiles and the materials that we need so the only thing
17:55that's left to get this bathroom finished is the tiler and we've already bought everything else that we
17:59need for him to get in and get the job done so that should be all that our bathroom costs
18:05and once that's
18:06done we finally have our fully renovated bathroom in the house which is absolutely incredible because
18:11when we got there there was not a functioning bathroom at all but i think this really shows how
18:17quickly the cost can add up because when you decide to completely transform an old japanese house
18:22rather than just make a few cosmetic improvements it adds up quick and remember this is only one room we've
18:28still got such a long way to go now something we definitely underestimated when we bought this
18:32property was how much work the garden would be when we first came to look at the house it was
18:38early
18:38spring so earlier this year and everything was like pretty bare there wasn't much growth at all but
18:43when we actually came back to settle on it and get the keys in the middle of summer the entire
18:49property
18:49had completely transformed like there was vegetation everywhere and before we could really start enjoying the
18:55outdoor space we needed to get it under control so we've spent a lot of time trimming trees cutting
19:01back overgrown areas clearing the garden and removing the waste and obviously that comes with its own
19:07expenses so one of the first things that we needed was a whippersnipper or maybe you call it a brush
19:13cutter that cost us about 24 000 japanese yen and then there were all the other supplies and equipment we
19:19needed to get the garden under control so things like shovels and rakes and just general stuff like that
19:25now this is another area where we're doing the work ourselves and it's cost us a bit of money but
19:29it has
19:29also taken an enormous amount of time so if you're thinking about doing this yourself and you have a
19:35decent amount of land don't just budget for the house itself you need to budget for maintaining the
19:41property and that can become a project on its own and the final renovation expense that we're going to cover
19:48in phase one is the master bedroom so compared to completely rebuilding the living room floor or
19:55renovating the bathroom this has been a much more cosmetic project but it's also one of the things that's
20:02really started to make the house feel like our home because we decided to update the old walls just by
20:09rendering and painting them and it's made a huge difference i honestly think that this is one of the rewarding
20:14parts of
20:15renovating an old house because when you're working on things like joists and insulation you're spending
20:21a lot of time and money on things that nobody is really going to see once the renovation is actually
20:25finished but when you finally get to paint a room and see everything come together it starts to feel like
20:31you're actually making some progress so looking back through our expenses we've spent money on things like
20:38wall sealer rendering materials paint stain and all the supplies needed to complete the job
20:44and although these individual purchases might not seem particularly expensive they all start adding
20:50up pretty quick but this is also one of the areas where we've been able to make a pretty big
20:55visual
20:56transformation without spending anywhere near as much as we have on something like the bathroom or the
21:01living room and it's been really nice to finally see part of the house starting to look the way we
21:06imagined it
21:06okay so now that we've gone through everything let's look at the total and i think it's important to
21:13separate these expenses into three categories so first of all the cost of actually buying the property
21:19second is the cost of getting ourselves established here in japan and then finally the third is the
21:26actual renovation expenses because when somebody asks how much it costs to renovate an abandoned house
21:32in japan buying a car isn't necessarily part of what they're asking but if you're trying to work out
21:38how much money we've spent getting to this point it's obviously part of the overall cost now before
21:44i reveal the total there's one more thing i want to mention about the money side of things when you
21:49see somebody buying an abandoned house in japan for twenty thousand dollars or wherever it is it's easy
21:54to focus on that us dollar figure but obviously we're not walking into japanese hardware stores and paying
22:00for everything in us dollars we're paying for it in japanese yen and the exchange rate can make a difference
22:06to
22:06what this project ultimately costs us when we look at it in another currency so that's why throughout
22:11this series i'm going to show you our expenses in japanese yen first because that's what we're actually
22:16spending and then i'll give you the approximate us dollar equivalent so it's easier to understand if
22:22you're watching from overseas and this is also why wise has been so useful for us throughout this process
22:27from transferring the money to actually buy the house to managing our finances while we renovate it
22:34it's actually become a really practical part of living and spending money internationally especially
22:39here in japan if you're thinking about buying an abandoned house in japan planning a big overseas
22:44purchase or even just traveling and spending money in different currencies you can check out wise using
22:49the link in our description okay so the total amount that we have spent so far is 6.2 million
22:56japanese yen so
22:57all together from buying the property to getting ourselves established completing the renovation work that we've
23:03tackled so far yeah we've spent 6.2 million japanese yen now of that amount obviously three and a half
23:10million was the actual cost of purchasing the property including all the fees and everything
23:14which means we've spent another 2.6 million getting ourselves established and renovating the house and
23:20remember this is only phase one we've still got a lot of work to do and a lot of stuff
23:25ahead of us
23:25so there you have it that's how much we've spent buying and renovating our abandoned farmhouse in japan
23:31so far and i think the biggest thing to remember is that this is only phase one we're still a
23:37very long
23:37way from finishing the house we've got the bathroom tiling to finish more rooms to renovate and eventually
23:43we want to transform the separate building and outdoor spaces as well and i'm sure there's going to
23:48be plenty more unexpected expenses along the way so this is definitely not what it costs to completely
23:55renovate a house in japan it's what we've spent so far getting to this point and of course we're
24:01fortunate to be sharing this with our friend which means mandy and i aren't personally covering the
24:06entire cost that's exactly why i wanted to start making these videos now rather than waiting until
24:12the house is finished and trying to remember what everything costs we just want to share and document
24:17the expenses as we go and as we move into the next phase we'll continue tracking everything and sharing
24:23exactly what we spend because i think it'll be really interesting to see whether buying a 22 000
24:29abandoned farmhouse in japan actually works out to be the bargain we originally thought it was now
24:36something i'd love to know from you guys is whether any of these expenses surprised you was there
24:41something that cost more than you expected or something that was actually cheaper than what you
24:46thought it would be let us know down below in the comments and if you haven't seen our renovation
24:50series yet make sure you go and check it out we've been documenting this entire journey from the day we
24:56first arrived at the property so you can actually see all of the work that went into the numbers we've
25:01shared today thanks so much for watching guys and we'll see you in the next one cheers