First heritage de-listing for Kyoto City as 90-yr old bookstore is about to be demolished
Demolition of the 90-year old Heirakuji Bookstore in downtown Kyoto will begin this month as the owner can no longer afford to maintain the aging building.
The building was registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 1998. The heritage listing will be removed due to the demolition of the structure. This is the first time a national heritage listing has been removed from a property in Kyoto City and the second time for Kyoto Prefecture.Read more
Kyoto hotel industry boosted by foreign tourists
Hotel revenues and occupancy rates in Kyoto are rising thanks to the recent boom in foreign tourist numbers. Even the typical off-season months in winter and summer are now seeing strong demand for accommodation.
According to the Kyoto Convention Bureau, a survey of 34 hotels catering to foreign tourists found that the hotel occupancy rate in January 2017, which is off-season, was 75.7%. This is an increase of 4.3 points from 2016 and the highest rate seen for the month of January in the past four years. Kyoto Hotel Okura had an occupancy rate of 89.0% in 2016, up 7 points from 2015.Read more
Demolition of philosopher’s home in Kyoto starts this week
Demolition of the former home of philosopher Kitaro Nishida (1870-1945) started earlier this week. Nishida, founder of the Kyoto School of philosophy, rented the traditional Japanese house from 1912 ~ 1922. It is 500 meters north-west of Kyoto University, where he was a professor.
The 2-storey, wooden house was built in the later part of the Meiji era (1868-1912) as a rental property, with the landlord living nearby. The deteriorated condition of the 100+ year-old house was cited as the reason for demolition. It is expected that it will be replaced with apartments.
Historic school building in Kyoto to be converted into boutique hotel
A 83-year old former elementary school building in Kyoto will be renovated and converted into a luxury, 40-room boutique hotel. On May 20, Kyoto City announced that they will sign a 60-year lease with NTT Urban Development Corporation. NTT will pay an annual rent of 65 million Yen (590,000 USD) for the building and land.Read more
Local group wants to curb speculative investment in Kyoto apartments
A citizen’s group in Kyoto is campaigning for the city to introduce regulations to curb the recent speculative buying of apartments in the history city. On January 22, the Kyoto Community Development Citizen Association submitted a proposal to Kyoto City’s Town Planning Department seeking counter-measures against an overwhelming increase in real estate prices.Read more
Kyoto apartment sale breaks price record
A 749 million Yen (6.1 million USD) penthouse apartment in a luxury condominium currently under construction in Kyoto has sold out on the first day of sales.
26 of the building’s 85 apartments were offered for sale last weekend. They were priced from 41.8 ~ 749 million Yen (340,000 ~ 6,100,000 USD). A total of 44 purchase applications were received, with the most popular apartment (a 3-Bedroom unit priced at 329 million Yen, or around 2.7 million USD), receiving 5 applications. The second most popular apartment was another 3-Bedroom unit priced at 379 million Yen (3.1 million USD) which received 4 applications. As is the case with new construction sales, the lucky buyers were drawn via a raffle.Read more
Kyoto machiya popular with foreign buyers
According to the Urban Research Institute Corporation, foreign corporations acquired 1.2 billion Yen of real estate in Japan in 2014, 2.8 times higher than the figure in 2013. This accounted for a little over 20% of the value of all transactions nationwide.
While most of the foreign investment is centred in Tokyo, Kyoto is also attracting some foreign buyers.Read more