If there’s something strange with the property you seek to buy or rent, who you going to call?
In Japan, Kachimode isn’t afraid of no ghosts.
The real estate startup based in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward offers paranormal investigations for skittish buyers and renters.
The ghost-hunting service is aimed at restoring the value of “jiko bukken,” or stigmatized properties, offered at below market rate because of past tragic events.
In real estate transactions, buyers and tenants must be notified of the murder or suicide of an occupant, as well as when a body was left undiscovered for a prolonged time and decomposed after the occupant died alone, requiring a special cleaning service.
For rental properties, there is an obligation to disclose such an incident for three years after its occurrence while the obligation is indefinite for properties for sale.
That is because prospective tenants or buyers might feel reluctant and their decisions for property transactions can be affected.
Kachimode conducts paranormal investigations at apartment units and houses upon requests from property owners and management companies.
It examines the details of the incident and checks the rooms, common areas, equipment and furnishings to see if there are anomalies.
President Kazutoshi Kodama, 46, investigates each property overnight for eight hours from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. the next day.
He sets up a video camera and an IC recorder to record the scene, while he also checks the atmospheric pressure, humidity, electromagnetic wave, wind force and changes in temperature.
He said he came up with the method based on how paranormal investigations are conducted in Britain.
The company charges 88,000 yen ($550), including tax, for each session, after which he compiles a report on whether there are paranormal activities detected.
“Sometimes, out of the blue, the camera stops recording and the microphone picks up no sound for no apparent reason,” Kodama said.
“I make sure the equipment is working every hour, and, at the same time, I record myself with the camera,” he added.
INEXPLICABLE ANOMALIES
Kodama founded Kachimode in December 2022 after dealing with many stigmatized properties while he worked for a rental property management firm for 15 years.
He had seen many owners who cleaned or renovated their properties beyond recognition after their tenants died. Still, they had a difficult time finding new tenants and were forced to lower the rents to attract occupants.
He came up with the ghost-hunting service, thinking there would be no need to lower the value of their properties if the uneasiness felt by prospective buyers or tenants was eliminated.
In the more than three years after he started the business, Kodama provided consultations to more than 200 clients and carried out about 80 overnight investigations.
The president closed most of the investigations without finding anything out of the ordinary.
Although inexplicable anomalies have been detected only on a very few occasions, most of those were blamed on building materials that produced creaking sounds due to changes in temperature, pipe noises created by high water pressure or other factors.
And when anomalies are detected repeatedly in some properties, he rents them himself to continue his investigation and determine the cause.
“Such rooms are so uncommon and rare that they attract the attention of researchers, therefore they are worthwhile,” Kodama said.
The disclosure obligation remains mandatory even after ghost-hunting investigations are conducted.
But there are real estate and housing information websites that list properties whose owners and renters claim they conducted paranormal investigations on them.
“It can add value to their properties when they tell tenants that there shouldn’t be any problems because there is nothing to worry about,” Kodama said.
Some of his clients said they closed the contract smoothly after showing a report, while others said they felt encouraged to solicit tenants again, according to the president.
“When someone posts an entry online, saying that there was a dead body in a certain property, it remains almost permanently and it is difficult to erase it,” said Hideyuki Kokubo, a lecturer at Meiji University’s School of Information and Communication, who studies phenomena occurring in real estate properties. “We can expect (paranormal investigations) to repair such a bad reputation.”
GRATITUDE FROM BEREAVED FATHER
During one of his investigations, Kodama contacted the father of a female college student who took her life in an apartment complex in a Tokyo suburb.
The father was initially furious with the paranormal investigator, saying that his daughter was treated as if she were a ghost.
But Kodama explained to the father that the landlord had no choice but to lower the rent, saying that prospective tenants were shying away from the property because of the tragedy.
He also told the father that he just wanted to prove there was nothing wrong with the room.
Convinced, the father asked Kodama to share the result should he find anything paranormal and added that he would rent the room if it was haunted by his daughter because he could see her there.
Two weeks later, Kodama told the father he found nothing unusual.
The father said he used to visit the apartment building on the monthly anniversary of her death to put his hands together in prayer and added that he would pray for his daughter’s soul in front of the family alter at home from now on.
“As a complete stranger, you may feel unsettled when you think about seeing a ghost, but it could be someone’s loved one,” Kodama said. “I think it would help tenants and buyers feel less reluctance by promoting understanding through investigations.”