Japan’s Average Land Price Up for 5th Straight Year

Tokyo, March 17 (Jiji Press)–The average land price in Japan as of Jan. 1 rose 2.8 pct from a year earlier, up for the fifth straight year, the land ministry said Tuesday. The growth, up from the previous year’s 2.7 pct, reflected a gradual economic recovery, as well as growing demand for condominiums in large cities, such as Tokyo. For residential areas, the nationwide average land price climbed 2.1 pct, virtually unchanged from the year before. The country’s three largest urban areas around Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya recorded a price increase of 3.5 pct. Among the country’s 47 prefectures, Tokyo posted the highest price growth, at 6.5 pct, for the first time in 18 years. Six of the 10 residential areas with the fastest price increases were in central Tokyo. In the four major regional cities of Sapporo, Sendai, Hiroshima and Fukuoka, the average residential land price rose 3.5 pct, up for the 13th year in a row. However, the growth decelerated by 1.4 percentage points, partly due to rising construction costs. Elsewhere in the country, resort areas in Hokkaido and Nagano Prefecture saw steep price increases, thanks to expanding demand for vacation homes among the wealthy in Japan and abroad, as well as housing demand from people relocating to these areas. Although mortgage rates are trending upward in line with interest rate hikes by the Bank of Japan, a land ministry official said that its impact on land prices has not been clearly observed. For commercial districts, the nationwide average price rose 4.3 pct, up from 3.9 pct the previous year, reflecting an increase in foreign tourists to the country as well as the opening of new factories by semiconductor manufacturers. By prefecture, residential land prices turned upward in Toyama, while commercial land prices turned higher in Aomori, Tochigi, Gunma and Yamanashi. The Ishikawa Prefecture cities of Wajima and Suzu, which were hit hard by the Noto Peninsula earthquake in January 2024, continued to see land price falls, albeit at a slower pace. The most expensive residential land plot was located in the Akasaka district of Tokyo’s Minato Ward for the ninth straight year, at 7.11 million yen per square meter. The highest commercial land price was 67.1 million yen per square meter, at the site of Yamano Music Co.’s main store in the upscale Ginza district of Tokyo’s Chuo Ward, which led the list for the 20th consecutive year. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]