Not even the 2020 Olympics is helping Tokyo condo prices
Not even the 2020 Olympics is helping Tokyo condo prices
Japan’s currency is strengthening at the expense of the Tokyo property market
With foreign buyers put off by an appreciating yen, the average condominium price per unit in Tokyo dropped by about 5 percent to JPY56.56 million (USD563,000), the Nikkei Asia Review reported, citing new data by the Real Estate Economic Institute.
“With the yen strengthening, we’re not seeing the sort of explosive buying we used to,” a source at Sinyi Realty, a Taiwan-based real estate office with operations in Japan, said.
Citing a real estate insider, the Nikkei Asia Review reports that condo owners are now selling units around Tokyo’s waterfront, a site of several events in the 2020 Summer Olympics, which the country will be hosting.
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A Chinese buying spree had been reported last year in the Japanese capital. Spurred by the yen’s depreciation to a 22-year low and the fever of the upcoming Olympics, Chinese buyers helped drive Tokyo apartment prices to a peak not seen since the 1990s, the Real Estate Economic Institute claimed.
Rich locals, on the other hand, are also encountering impediments in buying luxury condos for inheritance tax purposes. “Scrutiny of tax avoidance” through condo investment is being ramped up in the city, according to Tomohiro Makino, president of consulting firm Oraga HSC.
“There aren’t any plans for big properties with luxury units to go on the market like there were last year,” Tadashi Matsuda, a researcher at the institute, told the Nikkei Asia Review.
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Source: Property Report