Supply of new apartments shrinking as developers struggle to secure land

In the midst of a recovering property market, Japan’s top real estate developers are struggling to find suitable plots for residential projects, causing supply to shrink and sales volumes to fall.

The total value of real estate available for sale by the country’s top five developers as at the end of June 2016 was 3.107 trillion Yen (approx. 28 billion USD), down 0.4% from March and the first time in 9 quarters to record a decline. Increasing land prices and intense competition has meant that even though demand for real estate remains high there are fewer projects on offer.Read more