Jaya Thursfield, 46, and his wife, Chihiro, bought an abandoned farmhouse in Ibaraki Prefecture in 2019 for $30,000, with plans to renovate it into their dream family home.

Jaya Thursfield and his wife, Chihiro, moved from London to Japan after buying an abandoned Japanese farmhouse in Ibaraki, a Japanese prefecture about an hour's drive northeast from Tokyo.

The interior of Mr Jaya Thursfield’s remodelled home in Ibaraki, Japan. PHOTO: NYTIMES. The Thursfields’ house, which sits among the paddies in southern Ibaraki Prefecture, about 45 minutes ...

Tucked away in Japan’s countryside, millions of abandoned homes – known as akiya – sit empty, waiting for a second life. With property prices often shockingly low, these forgotten houses ...

Ibaraki Prefecture, north of Chiba on the Pacific coast in the Kantō region, is known as home to the famed garden Kairakuen, the site of Japan’s second-largest lake and second-longest river ...

Jaya Thursfield, an Australian who moved to Japan 2017 with his wife Chihiro, bought an abandoned house not far from Tokyo for 3 million yen, or around $23,000, in 2019, and set about renovating it.