An American Couple Explored Japan for a Diamond in the Rough

Patty Chan’s love affair with Japan began 55 years ago, when she was a high school student in the San Francisco Bay Area and visited for the first time. She traveled to Sado Island, a remote community off Japan’s west coast, and fell for the traditional architecture of minka houses, with their tiled roofs, sliding doors and tatami mats. She read James Clavell’s “Shōgun” and immersed herself in the culture.

She met Tom Chan at the University of California-Berkeley in 1972, but the two didn’t become a couple until a decade later. By that point, Mr. Chan had lived in Hong Kong and backpacked through Asia and India, while Ms. Chan had explored Europe as a flight attendant for TWA.

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They agreed that the best travel was to places they knew the least about. “It’s more fun than school,” said Ms. Chan, 71. “We’re like cultural anthropologists.”

The Chans settled in Sacramento and raised two daughters. She worked a series of jobs — yoga instructor, retail manager, English teacher — while he ran General Produce, a food wholesaler established by his grandfather. Apart from their home in Sacramento, they owned a few rental properties. But they always wanted to buy overseas.

The opportunity arrived last year when Ms. Chan’s nephew, Blake Piper, who was living in Tokyo, offered to help. Mr. Piper had recently launched a real estate firm catering to foreign buyers and travelers.

The timing was ideal: There are more than nine million vacant homes scattered across Japan. Known as akiya, these abandoned properties are the orphans of a 20th-century population boom that has since shriveled. Houses in Japan typically lose value over time, with only the land retaining value. Owners often feel little incentive to maintain aging homes, and simply pack up and leave them behind.

Today, akiya are drawing foreign buyers and businesspeople who smell a bargain in heritage structures and short-term rentals. Investors must be wary, though: Deserted homes can quickly deteriorate in the humid climate, home inspections are rare, and the complexities of Japan’s real estate industry confound many outsiders.

But the Chans were determined to find a property that could generate revenue, and where they could stay occasionally. “There is a trend in vacationing nowadays where tourists want authentic experiences,” Ms. Chan said, “where the Japanese home still has tatami mats, shoji screens, you have to take off your shoes, sleep on futons on the floor that are put away each night, but have modern comfortable amenities such as a modern bathtub, fancy toilet, and a modern kitchen.”

Mr. Piper and a partner focus their business in Atami, a seaside hot-springs resort about 45 minutes southwest of Tokyo. Intensively built up in the postwar period, Atami now has the feel of a faded honeymoon town with great seafood — and akiya aplenty.

“We have hot springs year-round and the beach in summer,” said Mr. Piper, 43. “Atami is on the way to Kyoto but it has its own weird, bubble-era, slightly run-down beach town vibe.”

In early 2025, the Chans flew to Tokyo to start looking at properties. They wanted a traditional akiya from the Showa era (1926-89) with original details, and zeroed in on Kinomiya, a hilly neighborhood in Atami with a large Shinto shrine and views of Sagami Bay.

The couple earmarked about $1 million, funded by an inheritance and stock sales, knowing that while akiya can sell cheap, they often need complete renovations. They also considered buying more than one property with that budget.

“Patty has always had a passion for real estate,” said Mr. Chan, also 71. “I just came along for the ride and try to keep things grounded. At a certain stage in my life, I don’t want to tie up my money in property. I want cash!”

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