Market Trends

Price of an Apartment in Japan by Prefecture

The greater Tokyo region is Japan’s biggest real estate market, which is one reason that market observers focus so much on it.

However, most of Japan’s population (about 89%) lives outside of Tokyo, which has 13.5 million inhabitants. Of course, real estate transactions in regional markets have an impact on the national market as well. Not to mention that local prices are of interest to people who are deciding whether to buy in these regional areas, whether they plan to live in the property itself or to lease it out.

Japan’s “secondary markets” include Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, and Sapporo. We have posted articles on why investor interest is growing in Japan’s regional real estate markets and home buying trends in Osaka and Kyoto.

This article takes a look at the average price of a re-sale apartment by prefecture in Japan, as recently reported by Tokyo Kantei.

Not surprisingly, the most expensive market is Tokyo city, where the average asking price for a 70-sqm (753 square feet) condominium was about 46.23 million yen (about $390,000) in December 2015.

The least expensive market in Japan is Niigata prefecture (on the Sea of Japan coast of the main island of Honshu) where the average price of an apartment was 6.23 million yen (about $53,000) last month. The main industry in Niigata is agriculture, with rice being the main product. The low average price of an apartment in Niigata is a reflection of the low urban density in this relatively rural prefecture.

Demographic trends also mean that many young people are leaving rural prefectures in search of work in Tokyo. For more on this please see: Tokyo’s growing population: what it means for renters and investors.

In any case, the average price of an apartment in Tokyo is 7.4 times as expensive as Niigata, the least expensive market.

The least expensive region to buy an apartment in Japan is the Chubu region, which includes the prefectures of Gifu, Shizuoka, Aichi, and Mie, where the average price of an apartment was 15.73 million yen (about $132,000).

For details by prefecture and major city, please see the charts below.

Apartment Price Japan 2015 by Prefecture

Apartment Price in Japan 2015 by Prefecture

Price of Apartment by Region in Japan 2015

Have you bought an apartment outside of Tokyo or are you thinking about doing so? Please comment below!

You may also be interested in: Japan Home Affordability Survey by Prefecture

Photo: Rice fields in Tokamachi, Niigata


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