Supply of new apartments shrinking as developers struggle to secure land
In the midst of a recovering property market, Japan’s top real estate developers are struggling to find suitable plots for residential projects, causing supply to shrink and sales volumes to fall.
The total value of real estate available for sale by the country’s top five developers as at the end of June 2016 was 3.107 trillion Yen (approx. 28 billion USD), down 0.4% from March and the first time in 9 quarters to record a decline. Increasing land prices and intense competition has meant that even though demand for real estate remains high there are fewer projects on offer.Read more
Onsen and retail complex near new Toyosu Fish Market in jeopardy
The operator of a planned onsen, hotel and retail center to be built next-door to the Toyosu Fish Market in Tokyo has announced that they may withdraw their plans due to concerns about feasibility. The proposed ‘Senkaku-banrai’ center would include a 24hr hot spring bath, hotel and 200 restaurants and stores, with a forecast for 1.9 million annual visitors.
Tokyo Apartment Sales in August 2017
The following is a selection of apartments that were sold in central Tokyo during the month of August 2017:Read more
Home builder introduces 9-storey home to their line-up
In an industry first, PanaHome is now offering a 9-storey home for landowners who want to maximize the use of their land.
The suggested layout for the ‘Vieuno9’ high-rise home includes retail space on the ground floor, office and rental apartments on the lower floors, and the owner's residence on the upper floors. The steel-frame structure allows for ceiling heights of up to 4 meters on the ground floor and 3.14 meters on the top floor, with mid-floors having generous ceiling heights of 2.84 meters.
In 2016, housing starts for multi-storey dwellings (between 3 ~ 9 floors) reached 43,530 units nationwide, an increase of 7.8% from 2015. 82.5% of these homes were located in the Tokyo-Nagoya-Osaka belt where land prices are typically high while lot sizes are small. The Tokyo metropolitan area accounted for 30.6% of these housing starts.Read more
Developer loses 6 billion Yen in fraudulent land sale
Major property developer Sekisui House has reported to have lost as much as 6.3 billion Yen (approx. 58 million USD) to scammers in a fraudulent land sale in central Tokyo.
According to a public announcement made by Sekisui earlier this month, they had agreed to purchase the property from a company that claimed to have already signed a tentative sales agreement with the alleged property owner. On the day of settlement, the property title was to be transferred from the original owner to the middle company and then to Sekisui. After the money had changed hands, the registry office (the government agency responsible for recording official changes in property titles) rejected the deed-change application because the title and identification documents from the alleged seller were falsified. By this point the ‘seller’ and associated parties had fled with the money and could not be contacted.