New apartment price-to-income ratio drops for first time in 7 years

According to Tokyo Kantei, the average price of a brand new apartment across Japan was 7.59 times the average annual income in 2016, down 0.07 points from 2015 and the first drop reported in 7 years.

The price-to-income ratio across greater Tokyo was 10.68, down 0.31 points from 2015, and the first decline seen in five years. An increase in wages coupled with a stabilization of new apartment prices has been the cause behind the lower ratio. In fact, the number of prefectures across the country that saw an increase in the price-to-income ratio decreased from 36 in 2015 to 19 in 2016.

In the Tokyo metropolitan area, where the luxury apartment market is booming, the ratio increased for the 3rd year in a row with a new apartment costing 11.46 times the average annual salary.Read more


New apartment prices in Kyoto drop as developers are forced out of city center

The supply of brand new apartments in Kyoto City in the first half of 2017 increased by 21.7% from the same period in 2016, while the average sale price saw a steep drop of 24.1% to 43,280,000 Yen. The reason for the decrease in the price was due to intense competition for hotel development sites in the city center which has forced apartment developers to shift their focus to the city’s outskirts where prices are cheaper.

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Kyoto’s most expensive rental apartments to open in 2018

Kyoto’s most expensive rental apartment building is scheduled open in May 2018. The 5-storey La Tour Kyoto Higashiyama residence is being developed by Sumitomo Realty in the Higashiyama ward. It will be part of Sumitomo’s 'La Tour' brand of high-end rental apartments. The developer currently operates 20 La Tour buildings in central Tokyo, but this will be their first one outside of the capital.

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Kyoto’s tourism boom creates office shortage

With office vacancy rates in the 2% range, commercial tenants in Kyoto are reporting difficulty in finding new office space as the city’s supply of office buildings dwindles.

This year, parts of Higashiyama, Nakagyo and Shimogyo saw rosenka land values increase by over 20%. Rising land values are being supported by the city’s booming tourist industry which is causing real estate companies and hoteliers to aggressively seek sites to develop hotels and high-end apartments. With a scarce supply of vacant sites, office buildings are being torn down and replaced with hotels, shrinking office inventory.Read more


Lingerie company to start Kyoto machiya accommodation business

On May 30, Japanese lingerie company Wacoal Holdings announced that they will be starting an accommodation business that will feature Kyoto’s traditional machiya residences.

From early 2018 onwards, the company plans to renovate old machiya into hotel-like guesthouses targeting tourists, with two or three machiya to open next year. Their goal is to manage 50 machiya over the next five years with a total annual revenue of over 1 billion Yen (approx. 9 million USD).Read more


Kyoto is considering a tax on holiday home owners

Kyoto City is looking into introducing a tax on holiday home owners. In recent years, the number of out-of-town buyers of homes and apartments in the historic city has grown. The homes sit empty for most of the year while the owners do not provide much in the way of tax revenue, leaving locals to carry the costs of maintaining the city's infrastructure, and various local activities and programs.

Furthermore, increasing tourist numbers have led to intense competition for hotel development sites, pushing up real estate prices in the inner city areas to levels that are now unaffordable for the younger population.Read more


2.2 Traditional machiya houses in Kyoto are demolished each day

Two renovated machiya by Kazuya Morita Architecture Studio.

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