Actualidad inmobiliaria en Japon

[SolNaciente]

Bueno, dado que estoy suscrito a una newsletter, compartire esto con vosotros.
Una de las cosas que mas "gracia" me hace, es que comenten que con un sueldo medio de 4.6 millones al año no es posible comprar nada que este a mas de 27 millones.

Ciertas explicaciones
1-oku . Oku significa 100 millones.
Aneha Scandal: Se construyeron unos 120 edificios que no tienen el suficiente aguante como para aguantar un terremoto rellenito. Todavia se sigue con el tema.

Walking around the inner suburbs of Tokyo, those inside and
near to the Yamanote line, you can see more and more
evidence of the impact that REITs and real estate firms are
having on central city land prices. Within 1-2 blocks in
any direction in a residential area, you'll see vacant
land, coin parking lots (i.e., vacant land paying its own
taxes), and cleared construction sites -- all waiting for
the "go" sign from top management to start building
condominimums.

The problem is, the condo market isn't doing as well as the
REIT's stock prices might indicate, and indeed it seems
like the overall market is cooling off at a worrying pace.
The Nikkei says that although builders throughout Japan in
the April-September quarter limited the number of new
condos released to the market to just over 30,000 units,
the lowest number built since 1998, the number actually
sold has fallen even faster.

Apparently the first quarter sell-thru of new condos
nationwide was 71.1%, down 8.2% over a year earlier
-- and certainly not good news for builders. The newspaper
says that 70% is considered the break-even point between
growth and recession in the condo industry. In Tokyo the
sell-thru rate is still a healthy 75.7%, but the further
you go out in to the suburbs, the story gets much worse. In
Saitama, the sell-thru is just 60.1%, about 13.5% off from
last year, and in Kanagawa it is 67.9%, off 16.1%.
The Nikkei says that the slower sales are due to rising
prices -- not hard to imagine. In Saitama the average condo
is selling for JPY37.52m (US$323,000), while in Tokyo
it is JPY63.14m (US$544,000). Apparently the prices are
going up for two main reasons: firstly, the increase in land
prices, caused both by an improved economy and also
because supply is being choked off by over-eager building
companies and REITs, anticipating ever-higher prices.

Secondly the increase in building costs is being caused by
the tighter building laws. Readers will recall that after
the Aneha building scandal, where lax inspection processes
allowed more than 120 multi-story buildings around the
nation to be constructed with insufficient steel formwork,
the government said it would tighten up building
inspections.

And it has... The result is that in Tokyo at least, the price
per square meter shot up last year by least 17.5%. It now
costs around JPY870,000/sq. m. to build an average 70
sq. m. m2 condo in Tokyo.

So is the residential market in a temporary pause, or have
we reached a major price plateau?

We think there is no question that house prices are already
at the top end of the scale for the average working stiff.
Most banks limit a person to 5-6 times their yearly salary
(the Debt-to-Income ratio) as the amount they can loan, and
further require at least some deposit. So, given the salary
of the average worker is just JPY4.64m, and that of the
average household is about JPY5m, the limit to buy new digs
for the average family is currently about JPY27m or so. As
we see it, this should not even be enough for a new small
condo in a Saitama bedtown.

But, clearly people are still buying, even if in smaller
numbers. How are they doing it? Well, for the average
salaryman there is vendor financing if they are buying a
condo in a large bed-town development. Then there are some
employers who provide home loan assistance to their
employees, as a retention measure. And of course there are
the grandparents, who are now allowed to gift some of their
assets tax-free to their children while they're still
alive.

In addition, there are also some 2m (our estimate) or so
people nationwide who fill senior management positions.
The Nikkei says that the annual base salary and bonuses
for these people can amount to up to 4.8 times that of the
average worker, thus allowing them to reach the
"sub-ichi-oku" (under one million dollars) loan level needed
for a nice condo or modest home outside the Yamanote
line in Tokyo.

Above that level, who is buying the lavish 1-oku apartments
that we're now seeing sprout up all over downtown Tokyo?
We're talking about the luxury apartments in Hiroo,
Marunouchi, Shinagawa, and Shibaura (Tokyo Bay), that
measure in excess of 150 sq. m. or more and which typically
sell off the plan for JPY120m-JPY180m each. Well, as we
reported in our Take last week, at least some of Japan's
working generation (at least 400,000 people) are getting
rich out of the current export boom, and they are trading
up. And of course there are the 6m soon-to-be-retired baby
boomers -- some of whom will be millionaires at least
temporarily.

So there is some capacity for further upwards movement in
high-end property. However, we predict that this trend will
be localized, servicing the elite, and dragging along the
average property prices in the process. The reality for
everyone else is that a new home in the major cities and
particularly in Tokyo is moving out of the reach of the
average person -- and the gap is getting bigger.

Thus, just as we said a few months back when we felt that
commercial property was peaking because the average
company wasn't making enough profit to pay the extra
rent, we are now also saying that the residential property
market is peaking -- for much the same reason. Quite
simply, apart from the niche luxury market, it's a simple
matter of economics. If the property is too expensive for
most people to afford, they either don't want to buy it, or
even if they did, Japan's conservative banks won't let
them.

And in light of the subprime problems in the USA, that's
probably not such a bad thing...

 

[Albertini]

Haber si entra el señor muyuu, que tambien esta por esas tierras o eso creo, pero vamos, ally parecen que han aprendido y bien a base de ostras