Suumo Research Centre, a research oriented spin off of the Japanese property portal Suumo which is owned by Recruit, released results from its survey “Rent Contract Trend Survey” for the Greater Tokyo Area.  

Highlights of the results show a marked uptick in renters contracting after viewing the property virtually rather than in person.  

The results showed out of the 1,274 survey respondents who contracted a rental property in 2020, 13.5% of those contracted with only viewing the property online.  A further 6.2% reported they saw the property online first and then later in person which combined makes for a little under 20% of renters utilising online viewings.

The average number of properties visited when searching for a room was 2.7, which was the same as the previous survey, which then and now was the lowest ever rooms viewed prior to contract. 

Average rent from respondents who viewed online only was 89,998 yen, coming in a little under the rent of those who viewed in person only at 90,323 yen.

Regarding respondent awareness of not only viewing the property virtually but contracting the property online, 73.3% of respondents had either had experience directly with online contracts (7%), heard a lot of the practice (24.7%) or heard about online contracts a little (41.5%).  

This level of awareness is up significantly from the 2018 survey where only 29.2% of respondents indicated they had any direct experience or knew of online contracts.

Other differences between the 2018 and 2020 surveys were what factors renters were looking for in their new rental unit.  

The most decisive factor was public transport access at 46.4% (up 0.8% from the previous survey).  Initial cost, things like deposits and key money etc, factored high too however compared to the 2018 survey, each dropped 5% in importance from the 2018 survey.  

Layout, another commonly high factor in the results, increased 2% in importance from the previous survey respondents.  

For renters who work remotely, the location of the unit ranked highest at 32.3% of respondents, 11.6% higher in importance than renters who did not work remotely. 

For renters with pets, respondents on average spent 30.7 days from the start of their search to signing a contract; 8 days longer than renters without pets.  The average rent paid by pet owners was 105,847 yen, 17,505 yen higher in rent than non-pet owners. 

Sources:

Suumo Journal (Japanese only; September, 2021)

Sumitomo Fudousan (Japanese Only; September, 2021)

Suumo Full Survey Results (Japanese only; September, 2021)