Tokyo apartment sale prices increase for 55th month
According to REINS 3,163 second-hand apartments were sold across greater Tokyo in April, down 15.0% from the previous month and down 4.0% from last year. The average sale price was 32,450,000 Yen, up 3.2% from the previous month and up 11.2% from last year. This is the first time since December 2014 that year-on-year double-digit growth has been reported.
The average price per square meter was 504,000 Yen, up 2.3% from the previous month and up 8.4% from last year. The average building age was 20.09 years.Read more
Tokyo office rents increase for 40th consecutive month
According to Miki Shoji’s Office Report, the office vacancy rate in Tokyo’s five central business districts of Chiyoda, Chuo, Minato, Shinjuku and Shibuya was 3.39% in April 2017, down 0.21 points from the previous month and down 0.84 points from last year. This is the lowest vacancy level seen in 9 years. The vacancy rate in Shinjuku was 2.03% - the lowest of all five wards and down 2.20 points from April 2016.
| Vacancy rates in Tokyo: | |
| Chiyoda | 3.31% (-0.26 points from Apr. 2016) |
| Chuo | 3.09% (-0.98 points) |
| Minato | 4.55% (-0.93 points) |
| Shinjuku | 2.03% (-2.20 points) |
| Shibuya | 2.22% (-0.03 points) |
AVERAGE OFFICE RENT
Office rents increased for the 40th month in a row. The average rent in April 2017 was 18,583 Yen per Tsubo* (5,622 Yen/sqm) in April, up 0.4% from the previous month and up 4.1% from last year. The average rent on brand new construction was 26,785 Yen per Tsubo (8,104 Yen/sqm), down 6.8% from last year.
| Average monthly office rent in Tokyo (Rent per Tsubo): | |
| Chiyoda | 20,373 Yen (+4.6% from Apr. 2016) |
| Chuo | 17,283 Yen (+4.2%) |
| Minato | 19,298 Yen (+4.2%) |
| Shinjuku | 16,297 Yen (+5.3%) |
| Shibuya | 20,507 Yen (+1.7%) |
Source: Miki Shoji, May 2017.
Average discount of an apartment sold in 2016
According to Tokyo Kantei, in 2016 approximately 40% of second-hand apartments in the greater Tokyo area sold within a month of listing, and at an average discount of 3.00%. Two-thirds of apartments sold within the first three months of being listed.
Almost a third of the apartments that sold within a month of being listed sold at full asking price.
Apartment size vs. discounts and selling time
In greater Tokyo, the average discount across all apartment sizes and regardless of listing time was 8.70%.Read more
Tokyu acquires Kyu-Karuizawa Hotel
Tokyu Fudosan Holdings has acquired the Kyu-Karuizawa Hotel for an undisclosed price at the end of March. The seller was an offshore company.
Tokyu is expanding into the luxury hotel market in anticipation of growing demand from foreign tourists. They are also planning to open a hotel in Okinawa in a joint venture with NTT Group. The Hyatt Regency Seragaki Island Okinawa is scheduled to open in mid-2018.Read more
Yuzawa's resort condo market facing unique issues
Almost 20% of Japan’s resort apartments are located in the ski resort area of Yuzawa in Niigata Prefecture. The town has 58 resort apartment buildings containing approximately 15,000 units. Yuzawa also has the highest percentage of apartments as a share of total households nationwide, with 4 times as many apartments as registered households.
These resort apartments were built during Japan’s bubble economy in the late 1980s, with as many as a third of the resort apartments developed during that era located in Yuzawa. Buildings featured hotel-like facilities such as large hot spring baths, indoor pools, karaoke rooms and restaurants. Some buildings featured maisonette-type apartments over 100 sqm in size that were priced over 100 million Yen when new. However, many of the apartments were only designed to cater to short-term residents, with tiny kitchens with 1 cooktop.
From the 1990s onwards, apartment owners, saddled with high monthly building fees, effectively abandoned their apartments, causing many of the owners associations to face increasing debts from owners who had long-since stopped paying fees.Read more
Second building in Yokohama to be rebuilt due to faulty foundations
On April 30, apartment owners in a 262-unit residential complex in Yokohama voted in favor of redeveloping the five buildings after it was discovered that the foundations were not sunk deep enough. Back in 2013, residents noticed that one of the buildings was starting to lean after handrails between two buildings were out of alignment.
Residents of the 14-year old building faced a lengthy process, with the developer and construction company initially denying there was any fault with the building. Soil boring tests in 2014 confirmed that the foundation piles were too short and did not reach bedrock, causing one of the buildings to tilt. Reinforcing bars in the foundations of the other four buildings were also found to have been cut. Read more
2.2 Traditional machiya houses in Kyoto are demolished each day
Kyoto City is losing its traditional machiya townhouses at an alarming rate, with an average of 2.2 of these symbolic houses demolished each day.
On May 1, Kyoto City announced that approximately 5,600 machiya have been demolished over the past seven years. In 2016, a survey found that there were 40,146 surviving machiya in the city.
Of the surviving machiya, 14.5% are vacant and not occupied by owners or tenants, an increase of 4 points from the previous city survey in 2009. Kyoto City’s vacancy rate across all types of housing was 14% in a 2013 survey.Read more