18-storey apartment tower for Minami Aoyama 7 Chome

Sumitomo Realty & Development is planning a 63-meter tall, 18-storey apartment building in Minato’s Minami Aoyama address. There will be approximately 115 apartments in total.

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Historic brick warehouse in Nagasaki under demolition

Nagasaki City is pushing ahead with the demolition of a historic brick warehouse in Matsugaemachi. According to city archives, the Lake & Co. Warehouse was built sometime in the mid-Meiji period (1868-1912) by merchant brothers George and Edward Lake to store goods for their general store.

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Former apartment building in Omotesando to be redeveloped into retail

The vintage Minami Aoyama 571 apartment building in Omotesando has been demolished to make way for a retail store. The former building was privately developed in 1988 with 4 apartments over 4 floors. Back in early 2015 a full floor apartment was listed for sale for approximately 270 million Yen - a relative steal since it included a 130 sqm share of the land. Unfortunately several of our clients passed on this opportunity. Not long after, the apartment owners appear to have sold the building and land at an undisclosed but potentially attractive price. It was demolished several months ago by the new owner - a large real estate developer.

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Tokyo apartment asking prices see slight drop in September

According to Tokyo Kantei the average asking price of a 70 sqm (753 sq.ft) second-hand apartment across greater Tokyo was 36,360,000 Yen in September, down 0.1% from the previous month but up 2.3% from last year. The average building age was 24.1 years.

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Ishikawa Prefecture’s most expensive apartments go on sale

The most expensive apartments developed in Ishikawa Prefecture since the end of the bubble era went on sale last week. The 114 apartments in The Residence Kanazawa will share the building with the Hyatt House Kanazawa hotel.

Apartments in the first round of sales were priced from 30.4 ~ 199.8 million Yen (approx. 270,000 ~ 1,775,000 USD). The largest apartment on offer is a 180.77 sqm (1,945 sq.ft), four-bedroom unit priced at 199.8 million Yen. The building is due for completion by April 2020.

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What happens to your home loan if your house is destroyed in a natural disaster?

Generally speaking, if your house is destroyed in a disaster you are still on the hook to make your monthly mortgage repayments. However, this year many of Japan’s major banks have started to offer their new borrowers with some respite from their loan payments in the event of a disaster such as an earthquake, typhoon or flooding.

6 ~ 24 months delayed or exempted loan repayments

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New minpaku laws decidedly unpopular in Kyoto City

As at the end of August 2018, Kyoto City had only received 129 applications for short-term letting under the new minpaku laws that were introduced in June. Of those, 33 are located in exclusive residential zones where properties can only be rented out to guests for a maximum of 60 nights between January 15 and March 15, with some exceptions allowed for traditional machiya townhouses and homes where the host also lives on the premises. This pales in comparison to the total number of 7,028 applications made nationwide. In Kyoto Prefecture, excluding Kyoto City, only 18 applications have been received as at September 14.

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