{"id":19486,"date":"2026-05-09T02:56:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T02:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/19486\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T02:56:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T02:56:23","slug":"from-next-year-name-your-price-tokyo-real-estate-soars-to-33-year-high-mwonilissyu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/19486\/","title":{"rendered":"From Next Year, “Name Your Price”: Tokyo Real Estate Soars to 33-Year High [Mwonilissyu]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Surge in Prices of New Offices and Apartments in Tokyo
Rising Raw Material Costs Due to Weaker Yen and Middle East Instability
Extended Construction Periods and Revised Redevelopment Plans\n <\/p>\n

Editor’s NoteThis column brings you stories heard and seen in Japan over the past week by our international correspondent based in Tokyo. Updated every Saturday.<\/p>\n

“Korean real estate will eventually end up just like Japan.”<\/p>\n

This is a phrase you often hear in Korea when looking for a house. During the bubble economy of the 1980s, massive speculative funds flowed into Japan’s real estate and stock markets. There was even a saying that “you could buy the United States with the land value of Tokyo.” However, when the bubble burst, Japan entered what is now called the “Lost 30 Years” of prolonged stagnation.<\/p>\n

Recently, however, there have been noteworthy changes in Japan\u2014especially in Tokyo. Office building rents in Tokyo have risen to their highest level in 33 and a half years, and prices of newly built apartments in Tokyo\u2019s 23 wards have increased by more than 15% compared to last year. This is due to rising construction material costs and labor shortages, which have led to a decrease in supply. While speculative funds are not pouring in as they did in the past, this supply shortage has created a new form of overheating in the market.<\/p>\n

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Building view of Tokyo. Getty Images<\/p>\n

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According to an office building rental survey released this week by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei), the rental index for new buildings in Tokyo reached its highest point in 33 and a half years in the first half of this year\u2014the highest since 1992, right after the end of the bubble economy.<\/p>\n

This survey compiled rental data from four major office brokerage firms and indexed it, using 1985 as the base year at 100, to assess fluctuations. In the first half of this year, the rental index for Tokyo office buildings less than one year old stood at 239.98, up 18.2% from the same period last year.<\/p>\n

There is strong demand from companies seeking to enhance their competitiveness by moving into new large-scale buildings, as well as from those looking to consolidate multiple departments into spacious, newly constructed offices.<\/p>\n

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By region, the Marunouchi-Otemachi district recorded rents of 80,000 yen per pyeong (741,944 won). The Yaesu, Kyobashi, and Nihonbashi districts\u2014which face Marunouchi-Otemachi across Tokyo Station\u2014also saw a significant rise, with rents at 75,000 yen per pyeong (695,415 won), a 50% increase over the same period last year. In particular, a new large-scale office building was constructed in Yaesu as part of a redevelopment project completed this February, and pharmaceutical companies and others have already signed contracts and are preparing to move in.<\/p>\n

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TOFROM YAESU TOWER, a newly constructed building located in Yaesu, Tokyo. Tokyo Datemono.<\/p>\n

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The Shibuya-Harajuku area, known for its concentration of IT firms and startups, has also continued to be favored by new businesses, with rents rising 5% year-on-year to 52,500 yen per pyeong (486,790 won).<\/p>\n

Despite these rising prices, supply is failing to keep up with demand. According to office brokerage company Mikishoji, the vacancy rate for offices in Tokyo’s five central wards (Chiyoda, Chuo, Minato, Shinjuku, and Shibuya) was 2.22% as of March, well below the 5% equilibrium rate for supply and demand.<\/p>\n

Real estate company CBRE reports that about 80% of the buildings scheduled for supply in Tokyo this year have already secured tenants. Furthermore, from next year, supply is expected to drop by nearly 40% compared to previous years, leading to talk that landlords can now name their price for rent.<\/p>\n

General apartment (mansion) prices are also rising. According to data released last month by the Japan Real Estate Economic Institute, the average price of newly built apartments for sale in Tokyo’s 23 wards during fiscal year 2025 (April 2025 to March 2026) surpassed 130 million yen (1,205,380,000 won) for the first time. The average price reached 137.84 million yen (1,278,210,000 won), up 18.5% from the same period last year. This too is analyzed as a result of rising prices amid declining supply.<\/p>\n

The background to these price increases lies in the sharp rise in construction material costs. Recent instability in the Middle East has driven up prices for petroleum-based products such as naphtha. On top of this, there are growing difficulties in sourcing construction materials like paint and adhesives. The depreciation of the yen has further increased the burden of importing these materials.<\/p>\n

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In urban areas, the shortage of land for new development is also limiting the amount of supply. For these combined reasons, there have been increasing cases of construction periods being significantly extended or redevelopment plans being revised. For example, the Nihonbashi redevelopment project, involving Mitsui Fudosan and other companies, has pushed back its completion date by several years. As a result, the supply crunch is expected to continue going forward.<\/p>\n

This Week’s Japan Economic & Industry Briefing\u25b6 Nikkei 225 Reaches Another All-Time High
Following the end of Golden Week, the Nikkei average (Nikkei 225) once again hit an all-time high. On May 7, the Nikkei 225 closed at 62,833.84. Analysts attribute this to improved investor sentiment driven by rising share prices of big tech companies in the United States during the holiday, which fueled strong buying by overseas investors in the Japanese stock market.<\/p>\n

\u25b6 Japan-Australia Summit
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese held a summit on May 4 (local time). The two leaders agreed to continue economic security cooperation in critical mineral sectors such as energy and rare earths. Australia is Japan\u2019s largest supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG). As Japan relies heavily on imports for its energy needs, the country appears to be actively diversifying its supply chains in the wake of the U.S. and Israel’s airstrikes on Iran.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Surge in Prices of New Offices and Apartments in Tokyo Rising Raw Material Costs Due to Weaker Yen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2487,5979,8,38,173,4531,180,921,657,5978,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-19486","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tokyo","8":"tag-economic","9":"tag-issue","10":"tag-japan","11":"tag-korea","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-newspaper","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-society","16":"tag-south-korea","17":"tag-the-asia-business-daily","18":"tag-tokyo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}