Sep 30 (Japan Times) - An average price of land in Japan this year fell 0.6 percent from last year for the first decline in three years as the coronavirus pandemic caused a drop in land demand for commercial operations such as hotels and shops, government data showed Tuesday.
Among 21,519 sites surveyed across the country, 60.1 percent saw their prices fall as of July 1, according to the data released by the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry.
Prices rose from a year earlier in 21.4 percent of the total sites, but the ministry said prices of many of those sites reflected market conditions before the pandemic. Prices were flat in 18.5 percent of the surveyed spots.
The survey covered the average prices for all types of land nationwide, including commercial, residential and industrial.
Supported by an influx of foreign tourists and increases in commercial property rents and investments in the tourism industry such as those for hotel construction, Japan’s average price of land had been on a recovering trend, rising in 2018 for the first time in 27 years since the collapse of the country’s asset-inflated bubble economy in the early 1990s.
Uncertain prospects of recovery in economic activities are weighing on the country’s real estate investment, and it is difficult to tell whether conditions of the real estate market will stop deteriorating anytime soon, the ministry said.
