Tokyo 2020 Olympics

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Village Building Boom: If you build it, will buyers come?

The 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic games will commence about two years from today, on July 24th, 2020, and construction of competition venues and the Athletes’ Village is proceeding at a feverish pace. Among the questions being asked about the... More

Real Estate and Taxes

Lowering the Tax Basis of your Condo for Japanese Inheritance Tax Purposes

By Jeff Wynkoop The National Tax Agency (“NTA”) recently published its 2018 Roadside Land Values (路線価 or rosenka) for calculating inheritance and gift tax when ownership in land is transferred, and values were up 0.7% on average nationwide in the... More

Variable Rate Mortgages in Japan Hit New All-Time High

By Jeff Wynkoop The number of people taking out variable rate mortgage loans in Japan has hit a new all-time high. In the second half of the fiscal year 2017, 56% of all new mortgages were variable rate loans, which... More

AirBnB in Japan

Why the Japanese Government Was Right to Regulate AirBnB in Japan

By Jeff Wynkoop Recently some commentators have been taking the Japanese authorities to task for how they dealt with implementation of the June 15th Minpaku law. They say poor planning and heavy-handed regulation led to thousands of foreigners losing their... More

Buying a Home in Japan

What can you buy for $200,000 in Osaka?

In this installment of our series on “what can you buy” in cities throughout Japan, we head to Osaka, the unofficial capital of western Japan! The average price of a re-sale apartment in central Osaka is about 33 million yen... More

Rosenka Land Value Survey

Land prices in Japan up for 3rd straight year: 2018 Roadside Land Value Survey of Japan

The National Tax Agency recently published the 2018 Roadside Land Values survey (路線価 or rosenka). The main takeaway is that the national average price for land increased for the third straight year, driven by demand from inbound tourists and re-development projects... More

Seaside living in Japan

Luxurious Bayside Home for Sale in Nagasaki

In this occasional series on luxury homes for sale in Japan, we take a trip to the lovely seaside city of Omura, Nagasaki for a virtual tour of a beautiful designer home on Omura Bay, with its own berth and... More