Detached homes are the most sought-after type of residential property on our website, yet we have so few listings of homes compared to apartments.

Why not just upload more listings?

We can’t because they don’t exist. Of the thousands of apartments and homes listed for sale in Tokyo’s 23 wards each month, less than 10% are detached houses. The remaining 90% are apartments. 

The vast majority of those homes are the compact, cookie-cutter style, rather than the concrete architect-designed or contemporary and spacious homes that our buyers are looking for.

If you are looking to own a well-built and carefully designed home and don’t want to spend years and years searching, we strongly recommend that you consider buying land and hiring an architect to build your own house to your own specifications. Even building a cookie-cutter-style home is going to give you more satisfaction knowing you had some say in the materials used, plus you get the peace of mind with the warranty that comes with a new build.

You could spend 10 years looking for the perfect home that doesn’t exist in Tokyo, or 2 ~ 3 years to buy land and build. Land isn’t exactly in abundant supply either, but you will have more options.

Dwindling supply

There’s also a supply issue recently, and it’s a similar story for apartments as well. In recent months, year-on-year transactions of detached homes in Tokyo have seen double-digit percentage increases, according to REINS. The number of listings coming onto the market each month, however, has been seeing double-digit decreases. Inventory has dropped by as much as 30% over the past 12 months. In fact, remaining inventory is at the lowest level since REINS began reporting this data 20 years ago.

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