Nippon Tradings International
The Japanese government relaxed coronavirus border restrictions in March this year, but after almost two years of severely limited entry, “there needs to be a concerted effort to restore Japan’s image and lure back all the (international) talent that has been lost,” one expert told the Mainichi Shimbun.
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A resurgence in demand last year among Asia-based investors for commercial real estate in markets such as the US, Australia, mainland China, the UK and Japan, led to activity that surpassed 2019’s pre-pandemic volume. New data from CBRE shows that after a muted 2020, Asian outbound investment in the asset class rose 69% year-on-year in 2021, to $54.6bn.
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The Japanese yen continued to weaken against the dollar on Monday to a more than six-year low - plagued by a combination of rising global rates plus low growth and inflation relative to the rest of the world.
View articleCondo units, which come with a smaller land footprint (the building’s entire land footprint is distributed between the owners, proportionate to their units’ floorplan sizes), are usually the cheapest way to enter the market, and provide immediate turnkey profitability potential. The only cheaper asset type out there is rural land, with or without old, mostly abandoned houses built on it – but these types of properties rarely turn any profit upon purchase, and would require significant renovation and/or marketing work before they can be tenanted and start generating income – if at all.
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The midcareer job market in Japan is changing fast, with an increasing number of workers trading secure jobs at large companies for new opportunities at startups. The trend is particularly strong among workers aged 40 and older - the loyal backbone of corporate Japan - and could serve as a catalyst for Japan’s economic revival, said one expert.
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As the Bank of Japan asserts its standing as a lone dove among its peers, the yen is reclaiming its status as the world’s most popular funding currency. The trade comes with risks though, given the yen could revert to being a safe haven if tensions over Ukraine heighten or if an aggressive Federal Reserve triggers a markets selloff.
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The headwinds for yen are getting stronger and threaten to push the currency to a six-year low against the dollar. A spike in global commodity prices spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is likely to worsen Japan’s trade deficit as the country is a net oil importer and may push the yen to 120 per dollar this year, said Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities. Mizuho Bank Ltd. and TD Securities both predict the currency will weaken to 117 by the end of June, from 114.82 on Friday.
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The number of applications by Japanese citizens for the nation’s “Reverse 60” reverse mortgage loan program grew by 458 units year-over-year during the period of October-December 2021, coming out to a 44% increase, according to data released this month by the Japan Housing Finance Agency (JHF), a government-affiliated mortgage financial institution, and reported on by Tokyo real estate website Rethink Tokyo.
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The price of new apartments in Tokyo toppled a 30-year-old record in 2021 as rising demand from dual-income households and increasing construction costs boosted the Japanese capital’s once-moribund housing market. The mean price of new condos in the Japanese capital and surrounding areas hit 62.6 million yen ($550,000) last year, topping the 61.2 million yen high watermark set in 1990.
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While Japanese tenants, from a landlord perspective, are normally extremely docile and headache free, and while tenancies are generally long and stable as a rule – there is one issue that, while not unique only to Japan, is more common here due to the country’s status as the world’s fastest ageing society – as landlords in Japan, our tenants are often elderly – which means that the likelihood of them becoming severely ill or passing away during their tenancy is higher than in most other countries.
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A recent tally by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications shows that internal migration into Tokyo topped outflow by 5,433, the lowest figure on record. In particular, people leaving the capital’s central 23 wards outnumbered those moving in by more than some 15,000. This is surely a sign that the concentration of the population in Tokyo is beginning to reverse,
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The fact that Japan, as opposed to many of its neighbours, has been far slower in re-opening its borders, which remain all but shut to those who have not been residing in the country prior to the outbreak, however, has put a damper on the country’s economic prospects – but, surprisingly, and for reasons which will be partly explained, or at least speculated on, herein – these lacklustre economic prospects have done little, if anything, to property prices in most industry segments.
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