A Book Report (Real Estate Trends in Japan)
As part of my own education in real estate (and as a service to clients and the greater international real estate community), we have been building a list of the best books written in English about Japanese real estate.
This week we added an in-depth review of a another book: Winning Strategies for Japan Real Estate Investment, introduced by Cheung Neo Wing Tat, and featuring chapters from a variety of Japanese real estate companies. There is some criticism of the book online for its semi-professional production, but from my perspective as a real estate writer and consultant, the book was excellent; I learned a lot from reading it.
As Winning Strategies came out in 2017; if you were looking to learn about real estate in Japan, would a book that old seem relevant to today’s trends?
My experience is that the information from books from 2015-2020 area is entirely relevant. And the more I study the real estate market here in Hokkaido (and in Japan more generally), the more it seems clear that the current state of the market has been on the same upward trajectory for some years now.
The lessons taught (and the players involved) in the real estate books I have reviewed, very much apply to today’s transactions.
Early in Winning Strategies Cheung offers up an encouraging Bloomberg headline from 2017: “Japan is Back.” That is a reference to what felt then to be the beginning of a turn-around from the stag-flation of the post “Bubble Years” (1985-1990) and the resulting “Lost Decades” (1990-2020) that followed. That headline from 2017 was bullish. And if you know the current market, increasing land prices in places like Sapporo and Tokyo are indications that positive trends that began back then seems very real today.
One trend I have written about is impact of Asian investors in Japanese real estate. I have a personal interest in the role of Singaporean buying property in Japan (we see that in our client work). In Winning Strategies, Cheung cites Singapore as one of many countries driving real estate investment into Japan. And as Cheung is from Hong Kong, he brings more emphasis on Hong Kong investment (as well as Taiwanese wanting property in Japan), which added to what I see today about about the impact of neighboring Asian countries on the real estate market here in Japan.
Reading through some of these older books on Japanese real estate helps see the origin of some of these trends.
Japan’s real estate caught wide media attention in Hong Kong in May 2013. Low purchase price, high rental return – Japan’s properties came as a thrilling surprise, captivating Hong Kong people in a flash.
— Cheung Neo Wing Tat
Cheung’s book helps us put a date on when some of the current positive shift began: Cheung published Winning Strategies in 2017, and cites Hong Kong interest going back to 2013. In our review, we include another quote saying interest from investors in Taiwan came even earlier.
Another theme that comes up in Winning Strategies is that Hong Kong investors have a hard time finding good information about real estate in Japan written in languages they can understand:
The biggest obstacle to buying property in Japan: Language
— Cheung Neo Wing Tat
This is such a consistent theme; Across all of our research, the need for more information beyond Japanese language content comes up again and again. And as a Westerner writing about property in Japan, there is something interesting about watching Asian buyers converging on English as the language of foreign real transactions here in Japanese markets.
Unfortunately, information on Japanese real estate has not been well circulated in Hong Kong because of the language barrier. this feeds into the skepticism of investing in it.
— Cheung Neo Wing Tat
So yes, Japan’s real estate trends are looking bright (and have been trending up for many years). Yes, Asian buyers are the biggest segment of foreign real estate here in Japan. And information about real estate in English (a non-Asian language) is instrumental to all this inter-Asian real estate trading.
It is an interesting time to be watching these trends develop.
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I have talked about Japanese real estate books elsewhere. Most recently here on Substack with a new review of the book Real Estate Transactions in Japan. And we mentioned this book on our Japanese real estate blog on Tumblr.
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As always, I am very interested in topics related to property in Japan. Learning more (and writing on these topics) is a primary focus of mine. For publications and real estate companies that would like content or collaboration on these topics, please contact me.
Let’s talk.