Nihonbashi office conversion provides solution to vacancy woes

Renovation company Haptic Co. collaborated with interior design and furnishing company Idee to convert a 24-year old office building in Nihonbashi into residential apartments.

The 7-storey Nihonbashi M&K Building was built in 1989. The owners of the ageing building were having difficulty attracting commercial tenants. Converting the building to residential use was less than a third of the estimated cost of rebuilding. Read more

by Zoe Ward

New apartment prices in July

According to the Real Estate Economic Institute, a total of 5,306 brand new apartments were released for sale across greater Tokyo in July, up 31.6% from last year and up 8.6% from last month. The contract rate was 81.6%, up 8.4 points from last year. The contract rate in buildings over 20 storeys was 90.8%.

The average new apartment price was 51,280,000 Yen (528,000 USD), up 6.1% from last month and up 9.9% from July 2012. The average price per square meter was 727,000 Yen, up 6.0% from last month and up 12.2% from last year.Read more

by Zoe Ward

Office vacancy rates in July - Miki Shoji

According to Miki Shoji, the office vacancy rate in Tokyo's 5 central business districts (Chiyoda, Chuo, Minato, Shinjuku and Shibuya) in July was 8.29%, down 0.17 points from last month and down 1.01 points from last year. Vacancy rates were down in four of the five business districts.

The vacancy rate in new buildings was 12.72%, up 1.12 points from last month but down 20.92 points from last year. Read more

by Zoe Ward

Residential yields and vacancy rates in Minato-ku - August 2013

According to real estate listing site Homes, the average yield on an apartment in Minato-ku in August 2013 was 5.7%, down 0.3 points from last month. The average yield across Tokyo was 8.1%, up 0.1 points from July.

The vacancy rate was 9.9% in Minato-ku and 11.0% across Tokyo. Read more

by Zoe Ward

Mizuho and Sumitomo Mitsui to lower interest rates

Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank are lowering their prime lending rates on home loans this month.

Mizuho is reducing the interest rate on their variable and fixed-type mortgages by 0.1%, while Sumitomo Mitsui will be reducing their variable rate from 0.775% to 0.725%. This will be the first time since November 2010 that Sumitomo Mitsui has reduced their variable rate.Read more

by Zoe Ward

Tokyo apartment price-to-book ratios in 2013

Tokyo Kantei has released their 2013 report on the price-to-book ratios for apartments in greater Tokyo. The data is arranged by train station.

Apartments around Omotesando Station saw the best gain in re-sale value with a PBR of 1.41. Other high-ranking areas include Shinagawa (1.31), Tamachi (1.26), Shirokane Takanawa (1.23) and Toranomon (1.20) stations.Read more

by Zoe Ward

Mitsubishi's latest offering set to be Japan's most expensive apartments

Mitsubishi Jisho Residence announced that they will begin sales of apartments in The Parkhouse Grand Chidorigafuchi in early September.

With an average price of 2.4 million Yen/sqm, apartments in The Parkhouse will be the most expensive apartments to be released for sale across Japan since 2008. According to Mitusbishi Jisho's president, the pricing reflects the premium location of the building and was decided prior to the recent spate of good news about Tokyo's property market.

Read more

by Zoe Ward