Any buyers? Minato Mirai's deficit difficulties lead to last minute sales tactics

Commission for anyone who can sell the remaining land in Minato Mirai.

Minato Mirai 21 (MM) is a 186 hectare waterfront business district in Yokohama, and is home to the Yokohama Landmark Tower. The land reclamation (40% of the area) and urban renewal project began in 1983, but there are still some large parcels of undeveloped land that the city is desperately trying to sell.Read more

by Zoe Ward

Tsunami-hit homeowners to receive 80% of former land values

The coastal part of Shinchi Town before and after the March 11 tsunami

The town of Shinchi in Fukushima Prefecture will soon begin the process of buying up land in coastal areas from residents who have been displaced from the March 11 tsunami. This is the first town to announce official plans and set purchase values.

The land will be purchased at 80% of the government assessed land values (koji-chika) that were valued prior to the disaster.

There are five towns and cities along the tsunami-hit coastline, incuding Minamisoma, Soma, Iwaki, Hirano and Shinchi, that plan to relocate residents to higher ground. In Shinchi, 500 homes were fully or partially destroyed by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.Read more

by Zoe Ward

Downward price movements intensify in Tokyo

Nomura Real Estate Urban Net has published the latest residential land and second-hand apartment price movements for greater Tokyo. The downward trend of property prices is beginning to intensify.

According to the data, the average price of residential land in the last quarter of 2011 fell 0.9% from the previous quarter. From the surveyed locations, only 3.6% of locations reported an increase in land prices, 59.3% reported no change in prices and 37.1% reported a fall in land prices. For second-hand apartments, the average price in greater Tokyo was down 1.1%.Read more

by Zoe Ward

Buying a house that cannot be rebuilt

Due to land and construction laws in Japan, there are some houses that legally cannot be rebuilt. This is an important point to watch out for when you are looking to buy a home and land.

These types of properties are called "sai-kenchiku fuka" which means reconstruction is not allowed. In many cases this is because the particular block of land does not have sufficient street frontage.Read more

by Zoe Ward

New plan requiring land risks to be explained before sale

The Japan Association of Home Suppliers has announced plans to require a site geography and history report to be presented to the buyer prior to the sale of a home.

There are approximately 100 home builders who are members of the Association. The committee chairman, also company president of Mita Housing, said that following the Tohoku disaster they had received an increasing number of inquiries from clients concerned about the liquefaction risk and strength of the ground. He believes that providing a geography and history report for each property would provide help to ease the concerns of buyers. Mita Housing is about to introduce this new reporting system into their own business, and many other real estate companies also have plans to do so.Read more

by Zoe Ward

Buy-back scheme for tsunami-hit land

The Japanese Government has announced a new buy-back scheme whereby the  residential and farming land along Japan's tsunami-hit coastline will be bought up by the relevant cities and towns at slightly higher prices.

The purchase price for the land will be calculated by its estimated market value in five years from now. This is based on the government's 5-year post-quake reconstruction plan which includes restoring all infrastructure to the disaster-hit areas.Read more

by Zoe Ward

70 - 80 percent drop in rosenka land values in Tohoku

In order to account for changes in land values due to the March 11 Tohoku disaster, Japan's National Tax Agency (NTA) announced adjustment ratios, or scaling factors, for the 2011 rosenka (prices of land fronting major roads). Along with the 1995 Hanshin Earthquake, this is only the second time in history that adjustment ratios have been introduced.Read more

by Zoe Ward