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The story
A TV program spotlighted a growing number of cases where single people with jobs and steady income are being turned away by real estate agencies when trying to rent — and the story caught fire on 5ch’s News Speed+ board. The program featured testimony from a man in his 60s: “Even though I’m working and have income, I still got rejected.” On the thread, posters repeatedly pointed out that landlords avoid elderly single tenants mainly over the risk of lonely deaths (kodokushi) and the cost of restoring the unit afterward, sparking debate over whether public housing and local council watch-over services are actually working. The discussion also spilled into the broader question of whether owning or renting is better for old age.
“Even though I’m working and have an income, I got turned down by the real estate agent. There’s nothing I can do.” (Man in his 60s)
Broadcast & streaming: Wednesday the 16th, 7:30 PM
Right now, single people are increasingly finding themselves unable to rent an apartment.
Source: x.com / Original post here
What people said
I've still got 30-40 years to go, everything will be totally different by then anyway
Crash at my girlfriend's place (she's an old bag)
As long as you pay rent on time you can keep living there into old age — they can't terminate your lease or evict you just because you got old
The city housing near me has basically turned into a complex full of elderly people living alone. It's ancient and there's no plan to rebuild it, so young people and families won't move in — that's probably why.
Nobody wants to rent to old guys — the odds of a lonely death are too high. If you were the landlord you'd feel the same way.
Yeah, this. Google it and plenty comes up.
Big cities have much better support services.
The "Nakano Ward Anshin Sumai Pack" (Safe Living Package) is a service offered by providers under agreement with Nakano Ward for singles living in private rental housing — it bundles ongoing welfare check-ins with coverage for clearing out belongings and restoring the unit if the tenant dies.
Info on the Nakano Ward Anshin Sumai Pack:
https://www.city.tokyo-nakano.lg.jp/machizukuri/jyutaku/shien/anshinsumaipack.html
Guess I'm moving to Nakano Ward!
> Or are you planning to treat them like valued customers now, then find some excuse to kick them out once they age?
That's probably exactly the mindset of landlords who flatly refuse to rent to the elderly.
Which is exactly why nobody's going to want to run apartment buildings anymore — they'll just shut down the business once major repairs are needed.
They'll rent to a salaryman if he works for a company big enough to have transfers
Can you even read Japanese? Did you actually look at this?
We're talking about elderly singles here, lol
Exactly this. In an era with this many singles, I don't want people who can't think that far ahead running apartment businesses.
Then just rent only to elderly people who have a voluntary guardianship contract in place — just a ¥50,000–100,000/month subscription fee, lol 😁
That already exists normally — it's called "service-attached rental housing for the elderly."
And if lonely death alone is the concern, there are services that monitor your electricity usage too. Plus the post office has people who check in on you about once a week — those only cost a few thousand yen a month.
When you factor in the risk of cleanup afterward and rent going unpaid, of course landlords balk.
People like that just buy a house or condo even as singles
People with money go into high-end nursing homes. And when I say "nursing home," I mean facilities with spacious private rooms and doctors and nurses on-site 24/7.
Nah, what's the point of leaving behind a house and land after you die when you're single anyway?
There's no point leaving money behind either. At least a house lets you live comfortably while you're alive.
Why not just go with a nursing home? Care and meals are included.
Sure, if you can find one that'll actually take you.
Not sure what kind of nursing home you're picturing, but most places that'll take you while you're still healthy will kick you out once you develop dementia, become bedridden, or need serious full-time care.
Sure, if your mortgage is fully paid off, but if you're still paying it down the real hell is still ahead of you, right?
Both have their pros and cons.
The answer's already in: both the homeowner camp and the renter camp are losers.
A house isn't something you rent or buy — the real winners are the ones who just get one handed to them. If your own parents don't have one, get it from your spouse's parents instead (lol)
Do they even have somewhere to go once they're kicked out? That's just heartless.
It's a business. You wouldn't want to pay out of pocket to take care of some random stranger's elderly relative either, right? Landlords and nursing home operators are the same way.
For-profit companies just need to turn a profit — what happens to the person afterward isn't their problem.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Behind the difficulty elderly singles face in renting is landlords’ reluctance over the cost of restoring a unit after a lonely death and the risk of unpaid rent. The government has set up a safety-net housing program for “those requiring housing assistance,” but in practice both public awareness and the supply of such housing remain insufficient. The thread split over whether to view this as “a rational risk judgment by landlords” or as “de facto exclusion of the elderly.” Municipal services that bundle welfare check-ins with coverage for clearing out belongings after death (such as the Nakano Ward example) came up as a possible solution, but this kind of program hasn’t spread nationwide, and the disparity in support between municipalities is something the original report alone doesn’t convey well. There were also claims that public housing “isn’t working,” but that reflects a regional issue where aging housing complexes can’t be rebuilt and their tenant base has become fixed in place — it isn’t simply a flaw in the system itself. The discussion also expanded into the homeowner-versus-renter debate, but it’s worth noting that this is a separate issue from the core problem at hand: elderly singles being refused rental housing.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “‘Rejected Even While Employed With Income’: Singles Facing Situation Where They Can’t Rent Housing.”
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