The solution to the housing crisis is simple : murder all the current inhabitants. This will not only free up space but also substantially lower the asking price.
"When I visited the place for a viewing there was a man standing there, glaring at me," she says. "Since the estate agent couldn't see him, I realised he must be a ghost."
Of yes, of course, that is the ONLY POSSIBLE EXPLANATION.
Ryua was told that a man had killed himself in her apartment. It meant that she gets an almost 30% discount on her rent on her tiny, 25 sq m bedsit in the fashionable ward of Setagaya. She says she pays 45,000 yen ($285; £213) a month, instead of what should have been 62,000 yenThe latter issue, that of a person dying alone, would not generally affect the price of a property in, say, the UK or the US. But in rural Kagoshima, in Japan's southwest, it enabled Diane Tincher to buy a large three-bedroom house for about half of what would have otherwise been the asking price.
The 79-year-old American has lived in Japan for nearly 40 years, working as a tour guide. She says that the estate agent had been straight with her – there was a heavy discount as an elderly lady had died alone, thereby stigmatising the property. Tincher paid 20m yen for the house, in a location where similar properties usually sell for up to 45m yen.
Maybe we should just convince everyone that pretty much everything that happens has a sinister supernatural cause and so decrease all house prices at the same time. Previous owners want to move out ? It's cursed. House is in a cul de sac ? That's where ghosts live. It's painted white ? Ghost colour. Everybody wins since everyone's property price decreases, and the horror movie industry explodes.
'I live with a ghost' - inside the haunted homes attracting bargain hunters
Properties where someone has died in tragic circumstances can have big reductions in price.Michael Fitzpatrick (BBC News)
