Sales of the apartments in the Athletes’ Village are expected to resume this fall or later, once the Olympics wraps up.

The Harumi Flag development is a large-scale apartment complex on the man-made island of Harumi in Tokyo Bay. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government sold the 13-hectare site to a consortium of 11 developers in 2016 for the bargain price of 12.9 billion Yen (approx. 127 million USD at the time), with the stipulation that the developers would build the apartments to be used for the Athletes’ Village. After the Olympics, the apartments would be refurbished and delivered to various home buyers. 

Apartments first went on sale in August 2019, with 600 apartments released for sale. A total of 1,543 purchase applications were made at the time, with the lucky buyers selected via a lottery system. The second round of sales was scheduled to start in March 2020.

The rapid spread of the coronavirus in early 2020 put a wrench in these plans. The developers cancelled any further sales activity in March 2020 after the announcement that the games would be postponed. A total of 893 apartments had already been sold before this announcement.

The site has a total of 21 buildings, with a further 3 high-rises to be completed after the games. In total, there will be 5,632 apartments of which 4,145 will be made available for purchase. A total of 12,000 residents are expected to make this home from 2024 onwards.

According to the Nikkei Shimbun, the developers plan to restart sales this September, with approximately 3,200 of the remaining unsold apartments to be released in stages. Sales are expected to be watched closely as a litmus test of demand for high-rise housing.

The most expensive apartment in the complex is priced over 200 million Yen (US$1.8 million), but the majority are priced under 900,000 Yen/sqm (US$760/sq.ft). This may be 10 ~ 30% less than other new high-rise towers on these man-made islands, but the price discrepancy may be due to the lack of train access. The nearest train station is a 20 ~ 25 minute walk away. In Tokyo, buyers and tenants tend to prefer buildings within a 7-minute walk of the nearest station, and 10 minutes at most. In Tokyo’s hot real estate market, their relative affordability might be enough for some buyers to overlook the inconvenient location

Source: The Nikkei Shimbun, June 22, 2021.

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