Tepco to sell apartment building in Nagoya

As part of their restructuring in order to pay compensation to victims of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear disaster, Tepco will be selling an apartment building they own in Nagoya City.

"Solcher Tsurumai" is a 14-storey, 2 basement apartment complex that was built in 1999. It has a total floor area of 22,000 sqm and is on a 3500 sqm site. There is a supermarket on the 1st floor and residential units from the 2nd floor and above. Tepco purchased the building in 2001 through their subsidiary, Toden Real Estate.Read more

by Zoe Ward

Japanese home loan approval process becoming more difficult

The thorn in the side of the apartment market recovery

In March, 2011, the risk of holding real estate was actualized when the earthquake caused liquefaction alongside Tokyo Bay and led to a temporary period of restrained buying. Although the events of March will not soon be forgotten, there are signs that buyers are starting to return to the market with several new projects attracting a large number of inquiries and achieving good sales.Read more

by Zoe Ward

Average apartment rent in 2011

Tokyo Kantei announced the average apartment rent across Japan's three major metropolitan areas - Greater Tokyo, the Kinki region (Osaka, Kyoto, Nara) and the Chubu region (Aichi, Nagano, Shizuoka, etc). Tokyo and Chubu both saw a fall in the average rent, but the Kinki region saw an increase of 2.4% in 2011. Compared to the average rent of 1622 Yen/sqm/month in 2009, the rent in the Kinki region has increased by 6.5% over the past 2 years. This is said to be the result of an increase in newer apartments from 2010.Read more

by Zoe Ward

Politician Ozawa's vast real estate holdings

Politician and former Democratic Party Leader, Ichiro Ozawa, has been involved in a drawn-out trial over possible involvement in false reporting of political funds stemming from the 400 million Yen cash purchase of land in Fukazawa, Setagaya-ku, in 2004.

The indictment alleges that he conspired with three former aides in not listing the 400 million yen loan to Rikuzankai in its political funds report in 2004, and listing 350 million yen for the land purchase in a 2005 funds report, instead of for 2004. Also, the organization did not explain where the funds came from.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

On Sale: Mid Garden Akasaka Hikawa

With the first round of sales starting on January 14, price guidelines have been announced for Mid Garden Akasaka Hikawa. Two and three bedroom apartments are priced between 58 and 150 million Yen and the average price per square meter is 1,166,000 Yen. This property is competitively priced so sales are expected to go well. For a comparison, apartments in the recently completed luxury tower, The Tokyo Roppongi Club Residence,  just 500 meters away are priced at approximately 1,650,000 Yen/sqm.Read more

by Zoe Ward

10,000 public housing complexes require earthquake-retrofitting

Of the 183,547 public housing complexes run by local governments and the Urban Renaissance Agency (UR) across Japan, as many as 10,111 buildings require earthquake-retrofitting work. The total number of individual apartments within these buildings is 396,361.Read more

by Zoe Ward