Japan, supported by acquisitions by real estate investment trusts, accounted for 40 percent of total investment volumes of direct commercial property transactions in the Asia-Pacific region in the first quarter, according to Chicago-based broker Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.
June 29 (Bloomberg) -- -- Cushman & Wakefield, the world’s largest privately held real estate services firm, said it will focus on adding assets in Japan as property prices near bottom.
Cushman & Wakefield’s assets under management in the nation rose 10 percent to 220 billion yen ($2.5 billion) as of June from November, said Yoshiyuki Tanaka, president of Cushman & Wakefield’s Japanese asset management unit. The company bought 50 billion yen of office and residential buildings in Tokyo in the period as it shifts its focus to acquisitions, betting on a recovery, he said.
“The market is not going to get worse from now on as investors wait for an entry point,” said Tanaka. “We don’t plan to sell aggressively as we see prices bottoming.”
Transactions volume in Japan rose as commercial land prices reached a 36-year low. The country’s 38 publicly traded real estate investment trusts more than doubled property purchases in the first quarter to 229 billion yen from the same period last year, according to IB Research and Consulting Inc
Residential and retail properties each account for one- fifth of total assets Cushman & Wakefield manages, with 39 percent in office buildings, according to data from the New York-based company.
While a stable return can be achieved in Tokyo, a quick rebound in real estate prices is not likely, Tanaka said.
“A stable return of 4 percent is not very attractive to opportunistic funds,” said Tanaka. “We are likely to see property prices recover gradually.”
Japan’s commercial land prices declined 6.1 percent in 2009, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism said in a report in March. Values are at their lowest since the ministry began collecting comparable data in 1974.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-28/cushman-wakefield-to-add-japan-assets-as-prices-near-bottom.html
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