Tiny land in Tokyo

Let's take a look at some of the smallest blocks of land for sale in Tokyo:

7.82sqm 2,500,000 JPY (@ 320,000 JPY/sqm)
(84 sqft)
Yamatocho 2 Chome, Nakano-kuRead more

by Zoe Ward

[Foreclosed] Villa Resina

villa-resina-ex3This apartment block was initially built as a company dormitory for employees of the Kansai Electric Power Company.

Earlier this year it was listed for 1.3 billion JPY but it seems like they could not find a buyer in time. The current court evaluation is 573,000,000 JPY.

Read more

by Zoe Ward

JVC sells Victor Studio land in Jingumae

victor-studio

JVC Kenwood Holdings sold the land underneath their Victor Studio building in Jingumae 2 Chome to a real estate company. JVC will lease the land from the new owner and continue to operate from the building.

Victor Studio was opened in 1969 and is used by many recording artists including Southern All Stars and Smap.

The land was sold for approximately 3 billion JPY  (~USD 37 million as of October, 2010).  The land will be leased by JVC and they will also retain rights to the building. The company has been liquidating their assets, and also sold a building and land in Yokohama.

The google map location for the land in Jingumae is here.

Source: Asahi Shimbun, October 27, 2010

by Zoe Ward

Kan continues quest to control foreign land ownership in Japan - are legal reforms likely?

There are no restrictions against foreigners purchasing and holding land in Japan.

However, with recent disputes over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands igniting land ownership debates, many seemingly ordinary purchases by foreign capital are now under media scrutiny. This includes the purchase of forests in Hokkaido and the purchase of resort properties by a Korean group near a military base in Nagasaki.

Prime Minster Kan has recently started to raise the point of restricting land ownership in order to protect national interests.

The following is a translation of an article from the Asahi Shimbun, October 26th 2010.Read more

by Zoe Ward

Tokyo Land Prices in October, 2010

Based on current market prices, the average price of a 100sqm (1,076sqft) piece of land in Tokyo is as follows:

Minato-ku (201 plots)
100sqm = 123,300,000 JPY (4,076,00 JPY/Tsubo)

Shibuya-ku (294 plots)
100sqm = 95,052,000 JPY (3,142,000 JPY/Tsubo)

Meguro-ku (264 plots)
100sqm = 75,092,000 JPY (2,482,000 JPY/Tsubo)

Setagaya-ku (1,466 plots)
100sqm = 65,523,000 JPY (2,166,000 JPY/Tsubo)

The above data is sourced from the Homes database of land currently for sale. This data is current for October 1, 2010.

1 Tsubo = 3.3 sqm.

by Zoe Ward

Japanese Land Values Decline at Slower Rate

A recovery in housing demand is slowing the decline in land values in Japan, according to a survey by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

Of the surveyed locations, 45 had no decline in value, with 3 of those sites reporting an increase in value. Compared to results from previous quarters, the total number of locations reporting a decline in values was 70%, down from 82% from the last quarter, and 96% from the quarter before that.

Continue reading the full article at Bloomberg here.

by Zoe Ward

Land Transaction Prices in Japan

If you are interested in finding out current and past market prices of land in Tokyo and other areas in Japan, the following website called the "Land General Information System" lists the real estate transaction prices of land sold in Japan since 2005.  For privacy reasons, the exact address of each block of land is not published, but other details such as the size of the block, area and distance to nearest station are provided. Please be aware that not every transaction is published and there are sometimes errors in the sales data.Read more

by Zoe Ward