Akasaka Prince Hotel Redevelopment Plans Announced

Akasaka Prince Hotel

Due to aging, increasing maintenance and competition from  foreign-owned hotels, the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka will close in March, 2011 and will be demolished. Of the three buildings on the site, the oldest building dating from 1930 will be kept.

The current 139m 40-storey hotel was designed by Kenzo Tange and opened in 1983. It was hugely popular during the bubble, but lack of adequate maintenance and the introduction of foreign hotels to the market in the last decade has greatly reduced its appeal.Read more

by Zoe Ward

Tokyo Tatemono ties up with HSBC Premier

Tokyo Tatemono will be working together with HSBC to market new and second-hand apartments to wealthy foreigners primarily in Japan.

They will introduce the Brillia Series of apartments, as well as second-hand and investment properties to the Premier clients (those with savings and assets of over 10,000,000 JPY held with HSBC).Read more

by Zoe Ward

For Sale: 3 buildings owned by Japan Tobacco

roppongi-arents-exteriorJapan Tobacco have recently put three of their buildings in central Tokyo up for public sale and are currently accepting bids. The properties for sale are:

- Roppongi Arents (Residential)

- JT Ebisu Minami Building (Commercial)

- Alive Nanpeidai II Building (Commercial)Read more

by Zoe Ward

Asian buyers are top foreign purchasers in Japan

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on the shift among foreign buyers of Japanese real estate.

Asian buyers, both corporate and individual, made 18 real estate acquisitions in Japan in 2010 for a total of USD 372 million. US buyers made 3 deals totalling just USD 6 million.Read more

by Zoe Ward

The Omotesando Project

omotesando-project-dec-2010

Located at the Harajuku crossing and between the JR Railway lines and Co-Op Olympia, this 2,860sqm site has been sitting vacant for a few years now.

In August,2005, Raysum purchased the site and former building from Seibu Holdings and had plans for redevelopment. The total cost of the planned project was 40 billion JPY (an estimate from 2006 report).  Construction was initially scheduled to start in April, 2007 and be completed by March, 2009.Read more

by Zoe Ward

Inheritance tax changes

The Japanese Government's Select Committee on the Taxation System (seifu-zeiseichosakai) announced a new policy to reduce the fixed inheritance deduction from 50,000,000 JPY+10,000,000 JPY per inheritor to 30,000,000 JPY+6,000,000 JPY per inheritor. The announcement was made at a general assembly meeting on December 13th.Read more

by Zoe Ward

The Top 10 Most Expensive Apartments for Sale in Tokyo

tokyo-most-expensive-apartments

The following is a list of the top 10 most expensive apartments for sale in Tokyo (as of December, 2010):Read more

by Zoe Ward