The Current Situation of the Vacant House Management Business

— From the Result of a Questionnaire Survey of Vacant House Management Companies —

Abstract

  The increase in vacant houses has become a social problem. In particular, vacant houses that have been abandoned for a long time have a serious negative impact on the region. To understand the cause of these problems, the author conducted a survey to understand the status of private companies currently managing vacant houses. As a result, it was found that very few companies manage vacant homes in response to management requests from vacant house owners. Many vacant home management companies are housing affiliates, and not only do they receive fewer management requests from vacant homeowners, their administrative fees are too low for them to make a profit as a business. Therefore, most companies expect to help their original business rather than profit from managing vacant homes. The survey results also indicated that there seems to be a difference between residents in areas with vacant homes and vacant homeowners living far away from those homes in terms of how they feel about the seriousness of the problem.