In September, the average expected sale price of second-hand homes in the sixth ward of the metropolitan area of Tokyo was 160.4 million yen (about 5.17 million yuan) per 70 square meters, a record high for eight consecutive months. Foreign investment funds are concentrated in this region.
Japanese real estate research company Tokyo KANTEI announced on October 24 that the average expected sale price of second-hand homes in September was 160.4 million yen (about 5.17 million yuan) per 70 square meters in the six districts of Tokyo Metropolitan Center (Chiyoda, Chuo, Minato, Shinjuku, Bunkyo and Shibuya). The price rose 1.7 percent from the previous month, hitting a record high for eight consecutive months.
The survey targets are family housing, excluding houses, offices and shops with an exclusive area of less than 30 square meters.
Foreign investment funds are concentrated in the six central districts of Tokyo. Masayuki Takahashi, a senior researcher at KANTEI in Tokyo, said, “Investors are choosing houses in downtown Tokyo where housing prices are expected to stabilize in the medium to long term as a way to reduce risk.”
In the case of excessive concentration of investment in Tokyo, there are also differences in housing prices by region. Chiyoda, the most expensive of the six central districts in Tokyo, was 150.43 million yen (about 7.34 million yuan), 1.8 times that of Bunkyo, the cheapest (83.69 million yen (about 4.08 million yuan). In 2019, before the outbreak of COVID-19, the figure was around 1.5 times.
In terms of individual metropolitan areas, the Tokyo area Ichitosan prefectures (Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba prefectures) remained unchanged from the previous month at 47.77 million yen (about 2.33 million yuan). Tokyo rose 0.6 percent to 64.16 million yen, Kanagawa rose 0.8 percent to 36.89 million yen, Saitama rose 0.1 percent to 30.17 million yen, and Chiba fell 0.1 percent to 27.7 million yen, or about 1.35 million yuan.
The Kinki region fell 0.5 percent to 28.86 million yen (about 1.41 million yuan), and the Chubu region fell 0.4 percent to 22.47 million yen (about 1.1 million yuan).