Details of Akasaka’s 44-storey condominium announced
Details on Park Court Akasaka Hinokicho The Tower (previously the Akasaka 9 Chome Tower Project) have just been released. The 170m tall, 44-storey condominium, which was designed by Nikken and famed architect Kengo Kuma, is currently under construction on the northern side of Tokyo Midtown.
The high-rise will contain 322 apartments, of which just 163 (50%) will be available for sale. The remainder will go to landholders and participants of the development. The two and three-bedroom apartments will range in size from 57.61 ~ 203.96 sqm (620 ~ 2,195 sq ft). Layouts are cleverly designed and do not contain any windowless bedrooms that you may find in cheaper developments. The largest apartment, a 203 sqm penthouse, includes two full bathrooms, while the rest of the apartments have 1 bathroom.
Sales will begin in September October November 2015 . Prices have yet to be announced, but with apartments in other recent high-rises in Akasaka selling for around 2,000,000 Yen/sqm, it is likely that we will see comparative pricing in this new project. There have been rumours that apartments could be priced as high as 3,000,000 Yen/sqm.Read more
Meguro Station high-rise residential development draws huge interest
The large redevelopment on the eastern side of Meguro Station is garnering a large amount of attention with the sales office overwhelmed with inquiries. Tours of the sales showroom are now booked solid for the next two months. The sales office received 18,000 requests for property brochures, three times the number they had anticipated. Many of the inquiries were from prospective buyers in their 30s and 40s. A third of the inquiries were from residents in Shinagawa, Meguro and Minato-ku.
The model room opened in early April, and the first round of sales is scheduled to start in early June. Apartments will be offered for sale in stages, with almost 40% of the apartments being offered in the first round. Interested buyers will be required to submit applications during the sales periods, with lucky buyers selected via a lottery-type system.
The 80 billion Yen project includes two residential towers containing 940 apartments and a 27-storey office tower. Tokyo Tatemono, Daiichi Life Insurance, Taisei Kensetsu and Takenaka Corporation are the four developers.Read more
Transactions and luxury sales continue to soar in central Tokyo
According to REINS, 3,728 second-hand apartments were sold across greater Tokyo in March, up 13.2% from the previous month but down 6.7% from last year. This is the 12th month in a row to see a year-on-year decline.
The average apartment sale price was 29,230,000 Yen, down 0.1% from the previous month but up 9.7% from last year. The average price per square meter was 453,100 Yen, up 0.7% from the previous month and up 8.7% from last year. The average building age was 19.47 years.
1,843 second-hand apartments were sold in the Tokyo metropolitan area, up 17.2% from the previous month but down 7.1% from last year. The average sale price was 35,580,000 Yen, down 2.3% from the previous month but up 10.6% from last year. The average price per square meter was 601,900 Yen, down 0.7% from the previous month but up 11.1% from last year. The average building age was 18.58 years.
In central Tokyo’s 3 wards (Chiyoda, Chuo and Minato), 230 apartments were sold, up 23.0% from the previous month and up 0.4% from last year. This is the highest level for March seen since record keeping began in 2008.Read more
Residential yields in Minato-ku - April 2015
According to real estate listing site Homes, the average gross yield on an apartment in Minato-ku in April was 4.8%, down 0.2 points from the previous month and down 0.6 points from last year. The average gross yield across Tokyo was 6.6%, showing no change from the previous month but down 0.6 points from last year.
The average asking price of a second-hand apartment in Minato-ku was 878,943 Yen/sqm as of April 1, down 1.3% from the previous month but up 12.5% from last year. The average asking price for land was 1,206,363 Yen/sqm, down 3.2% from the previous month but up 6.4% from last year.Read more
Original Kanaya Hotel re-opened to public viewing
After a careful restoration, the historic Kanaya Samurai House in Nikko was re-opened to the public from March 29th. The property forms a very significant part of Japan’s hotel industry as it was the very first western-style hotel in Japan.
The 2-storey wooden house was built in the 1640s as a samurai residence. In the late 1800s it was the residence of Zenichiro Kanaya. Mr. Kanaya was inspired to open up his home to foreign guests after hosting a foreign friend, James Curtis Hepburn, a Christian missionary who created the Hepburn romanisation system for Japanese. Mr. Hepburn saw the appeal of the Nikko area and the potential for foreign visitors, and suggested that Mr. Kanaya create accommodation catering to foreign tourists.
Mr. Kanaya made some alterations to the home and opened it up to guests as the Kanaya Cottage Inn in 1873. British traveler, writer and historian, Isabella Bird, wrote about her stay at the inn in 1878 in her book ‘Unbeaten Tracks in Japan’, which further helped to promote the area and the hotel.Read more