There have been 282 documented cases of condominium-style apartment buildings rebuilt across Japan, according to a report published by Tokyo Kantei last month. 

The average age of an apartment building when it was rebuilt was 40.3 years, up from a 33.4 year average in the 2014 report. In the Tokyo metropolitan area, the average increased by 2.1 years to 42.1 years. Tokyo has seen 174 apartment redevelopments, with 60% of them for buildings over 40 years old. 

Nationwide, the average size of an apartment post-rebuilding was 69.11 sqm, 17.6% higher than the original apartment size. 

Rebuilding an apartment building requires 4/5ths of the apartment owners to agree. To demolish the building and sell off the land usually requires a 100% vote in favor. The national government is considering relaxing the voting ratio for older buildings to 3/4ths for redevelopment or selling off the land.

Redevelopment is not an easy or quick task and is not guaranteed to happen in all cases. Not only does it require consensus from the various owners in the building, but also has to have the potential to make it worthwhile financially, either through having the excess floor space to sell off or to have excessive funds saved up by the owners. One redevelopment in Shinjuku took over 30 years to get off the ground due to some early opposition from apartment owners.

Nagoya City’s first condominium redevelopment case was only just completed last month with a 10-story, 38-unit, 40+ year old apartment building replaced with a 15-story, 94-unit one. Redevelopment discussions began back in 2013 over concerns about the growing maintenance, deterioration and earthquake resistance of the 1970s building. Of the 35 original apartment owners, 10 decided to take replacement apartments in the new building, with the remaining owners selling. Between the early 2000s and mid-2010s, apartments in the old building were selling for an average of around 160,000 Yen/sqm. In the newly-completed building, apartments are listed for closer to 780,000 Yen/sqm. 

Of the 6.86 million apartments across Japan, between 1 ~ 1.6 million units are in buildings over 40 years old. That number is expected double over the next 10 years and quadruple by 2040. A survey of the 40+ year-old buildings by the national government found that half of the residents were over the age of 70. And, over 30% of the buildings had insufficient funds saved up for repairs and maintenance.

Sources: 
Tokyo Kantei, October 31, 2022.
The Yomiuri Shimbun, October 31, 2022.

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