アルケミージャパンは2.78億円の損害を主張カーバル・インベスターズに対する訴訟を開始
訴訟はカーバルのレジャーホテルで2012年9月の出来事から生じる
訴訟文書: アルケミージャパン vs カーバル・インベスターズ
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Japan Casino Push Leads to Calls for Review of Pachinko Status - New Taxes foreshadowed
Moves toward legalizing casinos in Japan have reignited a debate over
the legal status of pachinko, with a potential new tax mooted for a
$200 billion gaming industry that has existed for decades on the fringes
of the law.
Pachinko, a slot-cum-pinball form of gambling, is a national obsession, with 1 in 6 Japanese playing the game, though that number is declining as younger generations prefer to play games on their mobile phones.
With past links to organized crime, pachinko is not classified as gambling, which is illegal in Japan. Instead it’s treated as an amusement activity like arcades and hostess bars, and the operators of the parlors that are found in city streets across Japan pay no gaming tax.
As some lawmakers push to allow casinos that would contribute billions of dollars to state coffers, pachinko, too, could come under a new regulatory umbrella.
Takeshi Iwaya, a leading proponent for casinos from the Liberal Democratic Party, reckons any move to change pachinko laws should come once casinos are up and running, which could be as early as 2020, when Tokyo will host the Olympic Games.
While years away, such reforms may have greater implications for the pachinko industry than the likely loss of customers to new casino resorts, analysts say. And reforming the industry won’t be easy, given the web of special interests involved — not least the national police agency, which oversees it.
“I see no easy way out for the pachinko industry,” said Ichiro Tanioka, an expert on Japanese gaming industries and president of the Osaka University of Commerce, a leading proponent in the casino debate. “It’s a mess.”
In pachinko, players buy baskets of small silver balls that they feed into the machine and guide into a hole that spins out numbers or characters on an electronic screen. Matching series win the player more silver balls, which can be exchanged for snacks, alcohol or small items in the pachinko hall.
Most players, however, opt to trade in their winnings for “special prizes,” which they then swap for yen at small booths outside, but close to, the hall. Legally, these booths are separate from the hall operator, skirting anti-gambling laws.
The police stop short of fully endorsing this system as legal, placing it in a regulatory gray zone that has effectively barred pachinko hall operators from listing their shares on a Japanese stock exchange.
To help bring the game out of the regulatory shadows, a lawyer with ties to the industry suggested a “pachinko law” that would allow balls to be exchanged for cash inside pachinko halls. The main lobby group for parlor operators, though, wants to keep the existing system, but give it legitimacy through a state-supervised program.
Either plan would generate about $2 billion in annual revenue for the government, according to copies of the proposals.
Yoji Sato, one of Japan’s wealthiest tycoons and chairman of Dynam Japan Holdings, a pachinko hall operator listed in Hong Kong, backs reforms that bring all the industry’s moving parts under one law. He acknowledged the industry faces close scrutiny.
“Any industry that cannot be accepted or understood by society will cease to exist,” Sato, 68, said in an interview. “Dynam is in principle behind any move to clarify the industry’s role in society.”
Seiko Noda, another LDP lawmaker involved in both pushing for casinos and the pachinko debate, said there is no consensus yet on how best to regulate pachinko.
Among the 4,000 or so firms involved in the industry, the smaller, financially weaker hall operators are more worried about change, and particularly about any new tax plan, Noda said. “The hall owners are quite afraid they will be ordered to pay more tax to the government, so I’m considering it very carefully,” she told reporters at her office in Tokyo.
Dynam and other leading pachinko operators, meanwhile, are vying to open multibillion-dollar casino resorts — should regulations permit.
A recent Morgan Stanley report predicted that Japan’s casino market could be worth $21 billion to $22 billion — though that’s less than half the size of Macau’s, and well below a consensus view of around $40 billion, by 2025.
Sato said his focus is on that domestic casino opportunity, adding his company has held talks with casino operators including Macau’s Galaxy Entertainment and Melco Entertainment.
Rival hall operator Maruhan and two of Japan’s biggest pachinko machine makers, Sega Sammy and Konami, have also met casino operators, industry executives say. To gain experience in the resort business, Sega Sammy is building a $1.7 billion casino in the South Korean coastal city of Incheon with local gaming firm Paradise Co.
This diversification isn’t just driven by potential pachinko reforms. Pachinko revenues are falling as Japan’s population ages and as younger people turn to mobile devices for entertainment. On a recent visit to a brightly lit pachinko hall in an outlying Tokyo suburb, most of the players were middle-aged men.
While pachinko is unlikely to be badly hit in the short term — parlors are informal and widespread, while casinos will be upscale and out of town — a recent increase in Japan’s sales tax may squeeze small operators and accelerate consolidation.
Japan Times
Pachinko, a slot-cum-pinball form of gambling, is a national obsession, with 1 in 6 Japanese playing the game, though that number is declining as younger generations prefer to play games on their mobile phones.
With past links to organized crime, pachinko is not classified as gambling, which is illegal in Japan. Instead it’s treated as an amusement activity like arcades and hostess bars, and the operators of the parlors that are found in city streets across Japan pay no gaming tax.
As some lawmakers push to allow casinos that would contribute billions of dollars to state coffers, pachinko, too, could come under a new regulatory umbrella.
Takeshi Iwaya, a leading proponent for casinos from the Liberal Democratic Party, reckons any move to change pachinko laws should come once casinos are up and running, which could be as early as 2020, when Tokyo will host the Olympic Games.
While years away, such reforms may have greater implications for the pachinko industry than the likely loss of customers to new casino resorts, analysts say. And reforming the industry won’t be easy, given the web of special interests involved — not least the national police agency, which oversees it.
“I see no easy way out for the pachinko industry,” said Ichiro Tanioka, an expert on Japanese gaming industries and president of the Osaka University of Commerce, a leading proponent in the casino debate. “It’s a mess.”
In pachinko, players buy baskets of small silver balls that they feed into the machine and guide into a hole that spins out numbers or characters on an electronic screen. Matching series win the player more silver balls, which can be exchanged for snacks, alcohol or small items in the pachinko hall.
Most players, however, opt to trade in their winnings for “special prizes,” which they then swap for yen at small booths outside, but close to, the hall. Legally, these booths are separate from the hall operator, skirting anti-gambling laws.
The police stop short of fully endorsing this system as legal, placing it in a regulatory gray zone that has effectively barred pachinko hall operators from listing their shares on a Japanese stock exchange.
To help bring the game out of the regulatory shadows, a lawyer with ties to the industry suggested a “pachinko law” that would allow balls to be exchanged for cash inside pachinko halls. The main lobby group for parlor operators, though, wants to keep the existing system, but give it legitimacy through a state-supervised program.
Either plan would generate about $2 billion in annual revenue for the government, according to copies of the proposals.
Yoji Sato, one of Japan’s wealthiest tycoons and chairman of Dynam Japan Holdings, a pachinko hall operator listed in Hong Kong, backs reforms that bring all the industry’s moving parts under one law. He acknowledged the industry faces close scrutiny.
“Any industry that cannot be accepted or understood by society will cease to exist,” Sato, 68, said in an interview. “Dynam is in principle behind any move to clarify the industry’s role in society.”
Seiko Noda, another LDP lawmaker involved in both pushing for casinos and the pachinko debate, said there is no consensus yet on how best to regulate pachinko.
Among the 4,000 or so firms involved in the industry, the smaller, financially weaker hall operators are more worried about change, and particularly about any new tax plan, Noda said. “The hall owners are quite afraid they will be ordered to pay more tax to the government, so I’m considering it very carefully,” she told reporters at her office in Tokyo.
Dynam and other leading pachinko operators, meanwhile, are vying to open multibillion-dollar casino resorts — should regulations permit.
A recent Morgan Stanley report predicted that Japan’s casino market could be worth $21 billion to $22 billion — though that’s less than half the size of Macau’s, and well below a consensus view of around $40 billion, by 2025.
Sato said his focus is on that domestic casino opportunity, adding his company has held talks with casino operators including Macau’s Galaxy Entertainment and Melco Entertainment.
Rival hall operator Maruhan and two of Japan’s biggest pachinko machine makers, Sega Sammy and Konami, have also met casino operators, industry executives say. To gain experience in the resort business, Sega Sammy is building a $1.7 billion casino in the South Korean coastal city of Incheon with local gaming firm Paradise Co.
This diversification isn’t just driven by potential pachinko reforms. Pachinko revenues are falling as Japan’s population ages and as younger people turn to mobile devices for entertainment. On a recent visit to a brightly lit pachinko hall in an outlying Tokyo suburb, most of the players were middle-aged men.
While pachinko is unlikely to be badly hit in the short term — parlors are informal and widespread, while casinos will be upscale and out of town — a recent increase in Japan’s sales tax may squeeze small operators and accelerate consolidation.
Japan Times
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Tokyo office rents hit 4-year high in first half of 2014
The trend is shown by the office building rent index, which is based on rates when owners solicit new tenants. The index came to 129.81 in the first half for properties in Tokyo built a year or more ago, up 3.92 points on the year. It takes the February 1985 figure as 100.
Businesses are looking for more office space as they expand operations and conduct midcareer hiring.
Companies "are in strong need of improving their locations, as they think about hiring and other factors," says an official at Tokyo Tatemono, a leading real estate developer.
The index for new buildings, those less than a year old, fell. In this category, supply centers around midsize properties, which owners tend to have difficulty renting out at high rates.
In Osaka, meanwhile, the index for buildings at least a year old was 124.45, up 1.95 points. The figure for new buildings fell.
http://asia.nikkei.com/Markets/Realty-Reality/Tokyo-office-rents-hit-4-year-high-in-first-half-of-2014
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
2013 - Yakuza membership shrinks to record low
It is tough to be in the organized crime business in Japan. The latest
figures provided by the National Police Agency (NPA) show that core
membership of the 21 largest yakuza groups has fallen steadily in the
last three years, but the decline was more marked in 2013.
According to the NPA, there were 58,600 registered gang members in 2013 - 25,600 identified as full members of recognized groups and 33,000 classified as "associate members."
That total figure is down by 4,600 from the previous year and the lowest since the Anti-Organized Crime Law first took effect in 1992, while arrests of gang members was put at 22,861 over the year, down 1,278 from 2012.
The law has been updated several times in the last 22 years, points out Jake Adelstein, author of "Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan" and an expert on Japan's underworld groups. The most significant change came on October 1, 2011, when it became a crime for anyone to pay protection money to a gang member.
Down from 80,000
"Membership was hovering around the 80,000 mark for years and years, but the law that criminalized paying protection money has really hit them hard," Adelstein told DW.
"Traditionally, a lower-ranking yakuza earned his money from protection in his neighborhood," Adelstein said. "He earned an income, paid his dues to the group, had the right to use the organization's name in his 'business' and generally terrorize people.
"But when these people could no longer pay their dues, they were no longer part of the gang and - like any corporation - they went out of business." And life for these relatively unskilled and unqualified members of Japanese society - some indelibly marked with the tattoos and missing fingers that single out members of the Japanese underworld - is subsequently tough.
Adelstein says his research indicates they often end up in the construction industry or driving trucks, but many eventually resort to crimes that are taboo in the yakuza world, such as theft and robbery. Many end up in prison and the suicide rate for former gangsters is higher than in general Japanese society.
Japanese gangs are also facing a challenge to their monopoly on the market here, with groups from China, Korea, Russia, Iran and elsewhere making inroads into their traditional heartlands.
Foreign crime groups
Some groups, such as those from Vietnam and Pakistan, specialize in stealing cars and jewelry and then ship their loot abroad. Others focus on importing heroin through Malaysia and other narcotics from Africa.
But another factor imperiling a segment of society that has always been considered a fact of life among the Japanese public are the nation's well-documents economic and demographic problems.
"It's a two-tier labor market and we're seeing the same thing in contractions in Japanese schools and corporations," said Jun Okumura, a visiting scholar at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs.
"It could be argued that the yakuza were at the forefront of the downsizing movement here in Japan, turning to more irregular, part-time workers to complement their work force," he said.
And that means that income for the lowest level of gangsters is so pitifully low that the gangs are attracting fewer recruits. Combined with a falling birth rate, leading to a smaller pool of potential employees, the outlook for the underworld appears bleak.
New business opportunities
One possible way out is for gangsters to look overseas for opportunities. One of the most popular new areas they are examining is casino operations, in Macau, the Philippines and Cambodia.
"In Cambodia, there is no mafia presence, the entire political structure in the Philippines is corrupt so it's just a case of making sure you pay the correct people, while the underworld groups in Macau are not very strong," said Adelstein. "Others are setting up investment companies in Hong Kong and Singapore to manipulate stock market prices and make money in that way," he added.
As well as Asia, the yakuza's tentacles stretch as far as shell companies in the British Virgin Islands and Amsterdam, while one group is so brazen in its operations that it has little hesitation in sponsoring its own golf tournaments.
Overseas operations are, however, full of potential problems for crime syndicates that have previously focused their illegal intentions on the relatively easy domestic market. The most obvious threat to any business setting up in a foreign market is upsetting the local operators, as well as the need to carve out a new market for whatever sector that organization is working in.
And despite a history that stretches back to the 17th century, the yakuza are even fading in significance and influence in Japanese society. "When was the last time we saw a movie that glorified the yakuza?" asked Okumura. "That says something about this society. The yakuza just don't sell any more and maybe that is a result of social pressure not to glorify these people."
DW.de
According to the NPA, there were 58,600 registered gang members in 2013 - 25,600 identified as full members of recognized groups and 33,000 classified as "associate members."
That total figure is down by 4,600 from the previous year and the lowest since the Anti-Organized Crime Law first took effect in 1992, while arrests of gang members was put at 22,861 over the year, down 1,278 from 2012.
The law has been updated several times in the last 22 years, points out Jake Adelstein, author of "Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan" and an expert on Japan's underworld groups. The most significant change came on October 1, 2011, when it became a crime for anyone to pay protection money to a gang member.
Down from 80,000
"Membership was hovering around the 80,000 mark for years and years, but the law that criminalized paying protection money has really hit them hard," Adelstein told DW.
"Traditionally, a lower-ranking yakuza earned his money from protection in his neighborhood," Adelstein said. "He earned an income, paid his dues to the group, had the right to use the organization's name in his 'business' and generally terrorize people.
"But when these people could no longer pay their dues, they were no longer part of the gang and - like any corporation - they went out of business." And life for these relatively unskilled and unqualified members of Japanese society - some indelibly marked with the tattoos and missing fingers that single out members of the Japanese underworld - is subsequently tough.
Adelstein says his research indicates they often end up in the construction industry or driving trucks, but many eventually resort to crimes that are taboo in the yakuza world, such as theft and robbery. Many end up in prison and the suicide rate for former gangsters is higher than in general Japanese society.
Japanese gangs are also facing a challenge to their monopoly on the market here, with groups from China, Korea, Russia, Iran and elsewhere making inroads into their traditional heartlands.
Foreign crime groups
Some groups, such as those from Vietnam and Pakistan, specialize in stealing cars and jewelry and then ship their loot abroad. Others focus on importing heroin through Malaysia and other narcotics from Africa.
But another factor imperiling a segment of society that has always been considered a fact of life among the Japanese public are the nation's well-documents economic and demographic problems.
"It's a two-tier labor market and we're seeing the same thing in contractions in Japanese schools and corporations," said Jun Okumura, a visiting scholar at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs.
"It could be argued that the yakuza were at the forefront of the downsizing movement here in Japan, turning to more irregular, part-time workers to complement their work force," he said.
And that means that income for the lowest level of gangsters is so pitifully low that the gangs are attracting fewer recruits. Combined with a falling birth rate, leading to a smaller pool of potential employees, the outlook for the underworld appears bleak.
New business opportunities
One possible way out is for gangsters to look overseas for opportunities. One of the most popular new areas they are examining is casino operations, in Macau, the Philippines and Cambodia.
"In Cambodia, there is no mafia presence, the entire political structure in the Philippines is corrupt so it's just a case of making sure you pay the correct people, while the underworld groups in Macau are not very strong," said Adelstein. "Others are setting up investment companies in Hong Kong and Singapore to manipulate stock market prices and make money in that way," he added.
As well as Asia, the yakuza's tentacles stretch as far as shell companies in the British Virgin Islands and Amsterdam, while one group is so brazen in its operations that it has little hesitation in sponsoring its own golf tournaments.
Overseas operations are, however, full of potential problems for crime syndicates that have previously focused their illegal intentions on the relatively easy domestic market. The most obvious threat to any business setting up in a foreign market is upsetting the local operators, as well as the need to carve out a new market for whatever sector that organization is working in.
And despite a history that stretches back to the 17th century, the yakuza are even fading in significance and influence in Japanese society. "When was the last time we saw a movie that glorified the yakuza?" asked Okumura. "That says something about this society. The yakuza just don't sell any more and maybe that is a result of social pressure not to glorify these people."
DW.de
2013 - Land Price Rises in Big Cities and also Disaster Areas
Residential land prices in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya rose by an average
of 0.5 percent in the 12 months to Jan. 1, while commercial land prices
increased by an average of 1.6 percent, both rising for the first time
in six years, the government said Tuesday.
While average residential prices nationwide edged down 0.6 percent, and commercial property dropped 0.5 percent, the number of survey locations seeing land price increases jumped to around 7,000 from about 2,000 in 2012, the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry said in an annual report.
The highest land price was ¥29.6 million per square meter at Yamano Music Co.’s head office in Tokyo’s Ginza district.
The survey showed that land prices are recovering not only in the major metropolitan areas but in other locations as well.
A ministry official attributed the recovery to rising demand for condos and offices due to the Abe administration’s aggressive economic policies and low interest rates.
Some survey locations, including in Tokyo, saw price increases of more than 10 percent, but the official denied the possibility of an economic bubble backed by speculative purchases.
While commercial prices rose in all three major metropolitan areas, residential prices edged down 0.1 percent in Osaka.
Both residential and commercial land prices increased in Sapporo, Sendai, Fukuoka, Kusatsu in Shiga Prefecture and Naha in Okinawa. However, land prices declined at more than 70 percent of the survey locations in non-metropolitan areas.
In Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, the three prefectures hit hardest by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the number of survey locations that saw price rises increased due to growing demand for land amid reconstruction work.
Residential land prices rose 2.5 percent in Miyagi while Fukushima saw a 1.2 percent increase.
A residential location in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, saw a 15.1 percent increase, the highest among residential locations.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/03/18/business/land-prices-rise-in-big-metro-areas/#.UyjvP1GSx1M
While average residential prices nationwide edged down 0.6 percent, and commercial property dropped 0.5 percent, the number of survey locations seeing land price increases jumped to around 7,000 from about 2,000 in 2012, the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry said in an annual report.
The highest land price was ¥29.6 million per square meter at Yamano Music Co.’s head office in Tokyo’s Ginza district.
The survey showed that land prices are recovering not only in the major metropolitan areas but in other locations as well.
A ministry official attributed the recovery to rising demand for condos and offices due to the Abe administration’s aggressive economic policies and low interest rates.
Some survey locations, including in Tokyo, saw price increases of more than 10 percent, but the official denied the possibility of an economic bubble backed by speculative purchases.
While commercial prices rose in all three major metropolitan areas, residential prices edged down 0.1 percent in Osaka.
Both residential and commercial land prices increased in Sapporo, Sendai, Fukuoka, Kusatsu in Shiga Prefecture and Naha in Okinawa. However, land prices declined at more than 70 percent of the survey locations in non-metropolitan areas.
In Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, the three prefectures hit hardest by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the number of survey locations that saw price rises increased due to growing demand for land amid reconstruction work.
Residential land prices rose 2.5 percent in Miyagi while Fukushima saw a 1.2 percent increase.
A residential location in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, saw a 15.1 percent increase, the highest among residential locations.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/03/18/business/land-prices-rise-in-big-metro-areas/#.UyjvP1GSx1M
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Cerberus Exits Kokusai Kogyo Investment
Cerberus Capital Management has exited one of its two remaining investments in Japan, a majority stake in property company Kokusai Kogyo.
The deal was valued at as much as ¥140 billion (€1 billion; $1.37 billion), according to media reports. Cerberus did not comment on the sale, but the reports have stated that the private equity firm has offloaded its remaining 55 percent stake in Kokusai to the company’s founding family. The price has been placed at between ¥130 billion and ¥140 billion.
Cerberus originally bought a 65 percent stake in Kokusai in 2004 for an undisclosed amount. It was also reported at the time that Cerberus bought approximately ¥500 billion in loans to the Japanese company for a 50 percent discount, from lenders including the UFJ Group, formerly Japan’s fourth largest bank that was bought by Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group in 2005.
Cerberus does not have a dedicated real estate fund for Asia.
The Kokusai exit marks Cerberus’ second major exit in Japan in two years, after the firm reportedly raised about JPY 146 billion (€1.2 billion; $1.7 billion) by selling its shares in Japan’s Aozora Bank.
Cerberus also sold out of its Japanese love hotel investments in 2013.
This exit leaves Cerberus with only one major investment in the Japan market: a one-third stake in railroad and hotel operator Seibu Holdings.
PERE New
PERE New
Monday, February 3, 2014
Tokyo's Real Estate Market Back to Life
After decades drowning in deflation, Japan’s property market is
re-emerging, with average prices for new condos in Tokyo hitting levels
not seen since 1992, the Real Estate Economic Institute said this week.
If the trend continues and broadens, it could mark a turnaround in the
long-dormant financial fortunes of the world's third-largest economy.
Such a turnaround is long overdue: Japan’s real estate prices have been falling for nearly 25 years. From 1990 to 2002, falling real estate prices swallowed an estimated $9.3 trillion of the nation’s wealth, according to the Nomura Research Institute.
Now there's evidence from various sectors that the real estate market is rising.
1. Tokyo’s new condo sales grew 31 percent between May and December 2013, compared to the same period in 2012. The average price of new condos in Osaka rose by 8.8 percent in June 2013 from a year earlier, Global Property Guide said late last year
2. Resale prices are also rebounding, although at a slower pace. Sales of existing condos in and surrounding Tokyo grew 17 percent between May and September last year compared with the same period a year earlier, according to Real Estate Information Network for East Japan. The Tokyo Stock Exchange Home Price Index grew 3.3 percent in October from a year earlier. That’s still 11 percent below the precrisis 2007 peak and 59 percent below June 1993 prices, the earliest data available.
3. Though overall land prices are still falling-- average property prices are still 71 percent below their peak in 1991, according to a report released last week by the Bank of Japan-- land prices near major metropolitan areas are increasing. From June 2012 to June 2013, the average price of land in the Tokyo area grew by 5.2 percent, according to the Land Institute of Japan. In the Osaka area, the average land price grew by 2.3 percent in the same period. According to a Japanese government survey, more than two-thirds of major urban areas saw their property values rise last summer. In July, Moody’s upgraded its rating of Japan’s property market from negative to stable.
4. Residential construction is increasing. The number of new home buildings increased by 8.6 percent to 451,063 in the first half of 2013, compared to the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
5. If Japan's fiscal and monetary efforts to stimulate the economy succeed -- including the Bank of Japan's goal of inflation climbing to 2 percent -- interest rates will rise, lowering the cost of fixed-rate mortgages and, thus, motivating potential borrowers to take out loans that can be paid back with ever-cheapening money.
The road ahead could be bumpy. New home sales may be up now because of a planned sales-tax hike in April. But even with a tax hike in April, the real estate recovery may continue: Unlike the last sales-tax hike in April 1997, Japan’s economic policies under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have raised expectations for higher prices ahead and encouraged businesses to invest more. To offset any negative impact from the tax hike, the Abe administration is preparing a stimulus package of up to 5 trillion yen (about $48.3 billion).
http://www.ibtimes.com/five-signs-japans-long-dead-real-estate-market-has-finally-come-back-life-1546719
Such a turnaround is long overdue: Japan’s real estate prices have been falling for nearly 25 years. From 1990 to 2002, falling real estate prices swallowed an estimated $9.3 trillion of the nation’s wealth, according to the Nomura Research Institute.
Now there's evidence from various sectors that the real estate market is rising.
1. Tokyo’s new condo sales grew 31 percent between May and December 2013, compared to the same period in 2012. The average price of new condos in Osaka rose by 8.8 percent in June 2013 from a year earlier, Global Property Guide said late last year
2. Resale prices are also rebounding, although at a slower pace. Sales of existing condos in and surrounding Tokyo grew 17 percent between May and September last year compared with the same period a year earlier, according to Real Estate Information Network for East Japan. The Tokyo Stock Exchange Home Price Index grew 3.3 percent in October from a year earlier. That’s still 11 percent below the precrisis 2007 peak and 59 percent below June 1993 prices, the earliest data available.
3. Though overall land prices are still falling-- average property prices are still 71 percent below their peak in 1991, according to a report released last week by the Bank of Japan-- land prices near major metropolitan areas are increasing. From June 2012 to June 2013, the average price of land in the Tokyo area grew by 5.2 percent, according to the Land Institute of Japan. In the Osaka area, the average land price grew by 2.3 percent in the same period. According to a Japanese government survey, more than two-thirds of major urban areas saw their property values rise last summer. In July, Moody’s upgraded its rating of Japan’s property market from negative to stable.
4. Residential construction is increasing. The number of new home buildings increased by 8.6 percent to 451,063 in the first half of 2013, compared to the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
5. If Japan's fiscal and monetary efforts to stimulate the economy succeed -- including the Bank of Japan's goal of inflation climbing to 2 percent -- interest rates will rise, lowering the cost of fixed-rate mortgages and, thus, motivating potential borrowers to take out loans that can be paid back with ever-cheapening money.
The road ahead could be bumpy. New home sales may be up now because of a planned sales-tax hike in April. But even with a tax hike in April, the real estate recovery may continue: Unlike the last sales-tax hike in April 1997, Japan’s economic policies under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have raised expectations for higher prices ahead and encouraged businesses to invest more. To offset any negative impact from the tax hike, the Abe administration is preparing a stimulus package of up to 5 trillion yen (about $48.3 billion).
http://www.ibtimes.com/five-signs-japans-long-dead-real-estate-market-has-finally-come-back-life-1546719
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