According to a recently published white paper, prices of both new and used single-family residences have gone up in 2018 compared to 2017. The data only includes houses with land between 50 and 300 square meters, within 30 minutes on foot from the closest train station or 20 minutes by bus from the closest train station, primarily built from wood, and where the land and house were sold together.

In 2018, new houses were sold at the average price of JPY 40,960,000, up 1.3% from 2017 when they were sold for JPY 39,990,000. On average, total land space was at 115.1 square meters, and the total space for the house was at 98.3 square meters. The size of a typical piece of land available for building houses in Japan remains roughly the same as the year before, but the price has gone up for sure, meaning that the real estate prices has been on the rise in general.

Used single-family residences saw an even bigger jump in price, going form JPY 33,370,000 in 2017 to JPY 34,850,000 in 2018. Used residences tend to be slightly more spacious as well, at a total land space of 129.4 square meters, and 101.3 square meters for the house.

In terms of number of house built, 117,712 houses were newly built in 2018, which is up 1.2 % from 2017 when 116,287 houses were built.

Of all the new houses around the country, 55.6% of the total — which equals 65,416 houses — were built in the Kanto region, which includes Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba, and Saitama prefectures. Kansai region had the second largest growth with 15,366 new houses with the largest numbers seen in Osaka, followed by Chubu region with 15,043 new houses with most houses built in Aichi prefecture, which includes the provincial city of Nagoya.

Source: Kantei report published on January 31, 2019

By Kaori Kitagawa

Similar to this: 

Taking out a home loan: How much house can you afford in Japan?

Tokyo's rents moving 'steadily upwards' - Savills

5 factors that set Tokyo’s real estate market apart