In Japan, some apartments have their rents slashed by 20, 30 or even 50 per cent below market rates. The reason is chilling, yet deeply human: someone died there. A quiet natural death, an unnoticed passing in solitude, or a tragic suicide — all become labels under which these units are classified as jiko bukken — haunted properties that have absorbed the emotional residue of the last moments of death.

"My first experience with these stigmatised apartments began in the second semester when I planned to move out of my university's dormitory," said Asad, who is currently doing a master's in a university in Tokyo and needed to save more money to support his sister's marriage back home in Gujranwala.

To many landlords, death is not just folklore — it is a business reality. People hesitate to move into such spaces, fearing bad luck, discomfort, or simply the unsettling knowledge that someone died in the same room. So, to fill vacancies faster, landlords do the most rational thing markets do when facing stigma: they lower the........

© The Express Tribune