My lovely Taisho-period (1912~1926) 'kominka' in 2017

Located beneath the lighthouse in Isumi-shi, Chiba prefecture, this is my very recently acquired kominka project (April 5th, 2017). I've been looking at this house for some 5-years now, since it first came on the market. The original photos posted on the estate agent's website looked as though the previous occupant(s) lived like animals and got up and walked out in the middle of the night! There was trash everywhere! However, I could see past all that and went immediately to view it. It was love at first sight. 

However, at 25 million yen, it was rather ambitiously priced, and of course nobody bought it. Fast forward a few months, maybe a year or so, and it was taken off the market, cleared out and put back on the market at a more reasonable though still rather expensive 17.8 million. Still nobody bought it. I kept on dropping by whenever I was in the area, but couldn't really justify splashing out that sort of money.

Another year or so passed and it was reduced again to 14.8 million. Better, but still over-priced considering it's now somewhat deteriorated condition. Then, a few months ago, it came down to 9.8 million and I started to get excited, but worried in case somebody else snapped it up. I contacted an acquaintance who is a well-established real-estate agent in the Tokyo area and we arranged to go and see it together. His first comment was, "No Japanese will ever buy this." Quite why he said that, I really don't know. I mean, it needs a new kitchen, bathroom, toilets, and new floors throughout. It has termite damage, a leaky roof mainly due to the gutters not being maintained, but also possibly due to the odd tile or two slipping... Why would that put anybody off?? 

Anyway, his advice, if I really wanted to buy it, was to wait until the end of the fiscal year, a time when people need cash, and then make a ridiculously low offer. And so I waited. Mid-February rolls around and I do my daily real-estate website checks only to find that it has been sold!! A happy camper I was not! Fast forward another couple of weeks and it's back on the market. The buyer's wife got cold feet, or something. Lightweights. :)

And so I put in my 6 million yen offer, which of course gets rejected immediately. A week or so passes and I hear that the absolute minimum the seller will accept is 7.5 million. I decide to go for it.

Here we are just six days later and I've already pulled the kitchen out and the ceiling and wall coverings off (to expose the original timbers), among a number of other odds and ends.