One man's ruin is another man's mansion?

I read this article from the New York Times today (unfortunately, it's paywalled, so I'll give you the gist). I have a weakness for their property articles, and I find that their articles about humble New Yorkers searching for property are quite entertaining, and give me quite a boost when I'm down. I mean, sure, I feel life could be better if I had a $500k job in NYC and could afford to buy one of these apartments. But when I see first-time buyers having to plunk down $400k for a studio... and then pay $3k a month in condo fees... and something similar in property taxes. Well, you can imagine, I feel pretty good about my 20 leva condo fee, and my 30 leva in property taxes. :-)

Anyway, I digress... in this article they venture out of NYC and USA... to Japan. Where, apparently, there are "millions" (the population is around 125 million) of abandoned houses. Historically, these houses have been considered worthless, and usually allowed to rot and fall down... but, now, enterprising foreigners are realizing that they represent incredible value and should be renovated.

The parallel is obvious, as Bulgaria is also suffering from a very dramatic population decline, the worst in Europe. But Bulgaria has a substantially lower cost of living, and cost of renovation.

The article is here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/17/realestate/japan-empty-houses.html

Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?

With a shrinking population and more than 10 million abandoned properties, the country is straining to match houses with curious buyers.