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This one is fresh — newly listed and just on the market as of June 18. Every week, Japan Home Hoshi (JHH) searches listings scattered across hundreds of local Japanese agencies to find the homes worth a closer look while they're still available. This is one of them.

Before we get into it: Japan's market is a maze. There's no single place to search, the details that actually matter (land rights, zoning, taxes, renovation history) live in Japanese, and the rules shift from prefecture to prefecture. Our job is to cut through that — translate it, lay out the good and the bad, and hand you the full picture so you can decide for yourself.

Here's what caught our eye today. 👇

MORE PHOTOS THROUGH LISTING LINK

🏠 ¥3.8 Million 7DK in Ikaruga — Traditional Rooms, a Rooftop View, and Room to Make It Yours

📍 Location: Ikaruga-cho, Ikoma-gun, Nara Prefecture
💴 Price: ¥3,800,000 (about $23,100 USD)
🚉 Transit: 32-minute walk to Horyuji Station (JR Kansai Main Line)
🏘️ Zoning: Category I Low-Rise Exclusive Residential Zone — building coverage 40% / floor-area ratio 80%
📐 Layout: 7DK across two floors — 4 Japanese-style tatami rooms + 3 Western rooms
📏 Areas: Building 121.06 m² | Land 151.53 m² (45.83 tsubo, public record)
🏗️ Built: March 1967 (about 59 years old), wooden construction
🚗 Parking: Yes — free, covered carport built into the retaining wall, room for 2+
🚰 Utilities: City water, public sewer, city gas, electricity
🏠 Status: Vacant house — delivery date by consultation

About This Property

Ikaruga is one of those rare addresses where the everyday and the historic sit side by side. This is the town that grew up around Horyuji — the 7th-century temple complex that holds the oldest surviving wooden buildings on earth and a UNESCO World Heritage listing — and the surrounding Tatsuta area has been celebrated in Japanese poetry for its autumn maples for over a thousand years. This home sits right in the middle of that, on a quiet residential street in Tatsuta Kita.

The house itself has real presence. It's set up on a stone retaining wall above the street, with a covered carport tucked underneath and stone steps leading up to the entrance — so you get off-street parking and an elevated position in one. Inside, it's a generous 7DK that splits its character down the middle: four traditional tatami rooms and three Western-style rooms across two floors. The standout is the downstairs washitsu (Japanese-style room) — proper tatami, a handsome wood-framed tokonoma display alcove, and a full wall of shoji screens that flood the room with soft light. It's the kind of room that's expensive to build today and is already here, in good shape.

Then there's the roof. The flat rooftop terrace is railed and ready to use, with an open view across the tiled rooftops of Ikaruga out toward the Nara hills — a private vantage point most homes at this price simply don't have. The bathroom has been updated and shows well: a clean tiled unit bath with a deep soaking tub. There are two toilets, one fitted with a modern washlet (bidet) seat.

Now the honest part, because the photos tell on themselves. This is a vacant house that needs work, and the kitchen is the clearest example — the existing setup is original and worn, and you'll want to budget for a full replacement. Several rooms wear their era openly too: dated wall paneling, an embossed-panel Western room, retro flooring. None of it is structural, but it's cosmetic work that adds up, and you should price this as a renovation project with great bones rather than a move-in-ready home.

On price: at ¥3,800,000, this lands far below the typical range for a used detached house in Ikaruga-cho, where listings tend to cluster around ¥22.9 million. That gap is the renovation work and the age — not a hidden bargain with no strings. The land, the layout, the traditional room, and that rooftop are where the real value sits.

⚠️ Before You Fall in Love — What a Buyer Should Verify

This one has more regulatory fine print than most, largely because it sits in a protected historic landscape. None of it is a dealbreaker on its own, but you'll want each item checked before you commit:

The good news worth stating plainly: this is an urbanization promotion area (not a restricted control area), the land is full freehold ownership, and it's on public sewer and city gas — so unlike many rural akiya, rebuilding is generally permitted and you're not inheriting a septic tank.

Key Highlights

Listed By

S—- C—— Co., Ltd. — Nara Branch
📅 Information released: June 18, 2026
(Realtor info & 📞contact details are available to paid JHH subscribers.)

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