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SUMMARY
What rental yield can you get in Hiroshima now? Roughly 4% to 6% gross covers much of the normal apartment market, while disciplined buyers can realistically push toward 6% to 7% by accepting an older building or moving away from the most expensive central locations.
Hiroshima is a good example of why a citywide yield figure can mislead. Central rents are higher, but purchase prices rise even faster, which leaves Naka-ku and Hiroshima Station closer to 4% while several cheaper outer wards sit around 5%.
The strongest mainstream yield numbers currently appear in Asaminami-ku, Asakita-ku and Aki-ku. They are not necessarily the cheapest or highest-rent areas in isolation; their advantage comes from the relationship between rent and acquisition price.
Hiroshima Station is almost the opposite investment. Typical apartment yields are only around 4%, but buyers are paying for easier tenant demand, transport access and resale liquidity rather than maximum income.
Building age is one of the biggest yield levers. A 15- to 30-year-old apartment can offer a useful acquisition discount without taking the investor as far into repair, seismic, financing and resale risk as the cheapest 1970s stock.
Double-digit Hiroshima yields are real, but they sit in a different risk category. Current listings above 10% are largely possible because some units cost only a few million yen and are already four or five decades old.
Small apartments dominate the very high-yield end of the market because rents do not fall nearly as fast as purchase prices. The catch is that vacancy, tenant turnover and fixed building charges can eat into a cheap unit surprisingly quickly.
Vacancy deserves more attention than the headline yield suggests. Hiroshima City still has a large renter population, but tens of thousands of vacant rental homes mean landlords compete against plenty of existing stock, particularly when an apartment is dated or overpriced.
A 5% advertised yield is not a 5% investment return. Once management, vacancy, condominium charges, repair reserves, taxes, insurance and routine repairs are included, a plausible property-level return can fall toward 3% to 4% before financing and income tax.
The most attractive part of Hiroshima today is therefore not the highest-yield listing. A roughly 6% gross apartment in a healthy building, at a price that still leaves room for future resale, looks more compelling than a 10% to 12% unit whose yield mainly reflects age and building risk.
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What rental yield can you realistically get in Hiroshima now?
A realistic gross rental yield for a normal Hiroshima apartment today is roughly 4% to 6%, while a well-bought older property can push toward 6% to 7%.
That range fits both the latest asking-price data and what investors can currently see in the market. AtHome puts the average Hiroshima City rent at about ¥70,000 for a 1LDK, ¥72,000 for a 2LDK and ¥80,000 for a 3LDK. Meanwhile, LIFULL HOME'S shows a huge spread in 70 m² resale asking prices, from roughly ¥14.9 million in Asakita-ku to ¥32.1 million in Naka-ku.
Current investment listings tell a similar story. Around Funairi, Rakumachi recently showed a 2009-built 29.66 m² apartment at a 5.47% advertised yield and a 2012-built full apartment building at 5.86%. At the other end of the market, several much older small units were advertised above 11%.
That leaves three broad Hiroshima yield bands. Around 4% to 5% is common for better-located or more expensive stock. Roughly 5% to 7% is where yield-oriented buyers can realistically hunt. Once the headline passes 8% or 10%, the building usually becomes much older, much cheaper or harder to underwrite.
| Hiroshima investment profile | Gross yield we would expect | What usually comes with it | Our view |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prime / newer apartment | 3.5%–5% | Higher purchase price, better location | Normal |
| Mainstream older apartment | 5%–7% | Older building, lower entry price | Sweet spot |
| High-yield older unit | 7%–10% | More building and resale risk | Needs scrutiny |
| Double-digit listing | 10%+ | Very old or unusually cheap stock | Risk-first analysis |
Why is there no single “Hiroshima rental yield”?
A Hiroshima rental yield can move by several percentage points simply by changing the ward, building age or apartment size, so one citywide percentage is almost useless on its own.
Take a 70 m² apartment. LIFULL HOME'S currently puts the average asking price at about ¥32.05 million in Naka-ku, ¥27.92 million in Minami-ku and only ¥19.31 million in Asaminami-ku. Tenants pay more to live centrally, but rents do not rise in the same proportion.
AtHome currently shows a typical 3LDK at about ¥110,500 a month in Naka-ku versus ¥82,200 in Asaminami-ku. Naka-ku rent is roughly 34% higher, while its representative purchase price is about 66% higher. That gap alone explains why central Hiroshima yields compress.
Building age creates another split. A small apartment from the 1970s can cost only a few million yen and still collect ¥40,000 to ¥50,000 a month. The resulting yield looks spectacular beside a newer condominium, even though the tenant is paying a perfectly ordinary Hiroshima rent.
Whenever someone says “Hiroshima yields 7%,” we would immediately want to know what they bought.
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Which Hiroshima wards give the best rental yields today?
Asaminami-ku, Asakita-ku and Aki-ku currently give the clearest route toward 5% gross yields on ordinary family apartments, while central Hiroshima sits closer to 4%.
We compared current 70 m² resale asking prices from LIFULL HOME'S with AtHome's latest 3LDK asking rents. This does not give a property-by-property investment yield because the datasets contain different apartments, but it is useful for seeing the relative pressure between rents and prices.
Asaminami-ku comes out around 5.1%, Asakita-ku around 5.0% and Aki-ku around 5.2%. Naka-ku is closer to 4.1%, despite having much higher absolute rents. Minami-ku reaches roughly 4.3%, while Nishi-ku and Higashi-ku are around the mid-4% range.
Saeki-ku is the interesting exception. Its representative resale price remains relatively high compared with its current 3LDK rent, leaving an implied yield just under 4%. Going farther from the center therefore does not automatically improve the numbers.
| Hiroshima ward | 70 m² resale asking price | 3LDK asking rent | Rough implied gross yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| Naka-ku | ¥32.05m | ¥110,500/month | 4.1% |
| Minami-ku | ¥27.92m | ¥101,100/month | 4.3% |
| Nishi-ku | ¥21.82m | ¥82,600/month | 4.5% |
| Higashi-ku | ¥23.68m | ¥82,000/month | 4.2% |
| Asaminami-ku | ¥19.31m | ¥82,200/month | 5.1% |
| Asakita-ku | ¥14.91m | ¥62,500/month | 5.0% |
| Aki-ku | ¥15.83m | ¥68,000/month | 5.2% |
| Saeki-ku | ¥23.28m | ¥77,000/month | 4.0% |
Does buying near Hiroshima Station give you a good rental yield?
Hiroshima Station currently gives investors roughly a 4% gross yield on typical apartments, which is respectable for such a strong location but hardly a high-yield play.
AtHome's latest listings put average Hiroshima Station rents at about ¥75,300 for a 1LDK, ¥96,900 for a 2LDK and ¥120,000 for a 3LDK. Current resale asking prices for the same layouts average roughly ¥23.94 million, ¥30.15 million and ¥35.49 million respectively.
That produces gross rent-to-price ratios of about 3.8% for a 1LDK, 3.9% for a 2LDK and 4.1% for a 3LDK.
The earlier version of this analysis made Hiroshima Station look slightly less attractive because it compared station rents with a different 70 m² sale benchmark. Matching the layouts more closely gives us a cleaner result: buyers around Hiroshima Station are generally accepting a yield around 4% in exchange for one of the city's easiest locations to rent and resell.
Paying substantially above the local average can still crush the yield, of course. We would buy near Hiroshima Station for location quality first and income second.
| Hiroshima Station layout | Current average rent | Current average resale asking price | Approx. gross yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1LDK | ¥75,300 | ¥23.94m | 3.8% |
| 2LDK | ¥96,900 | ¥30.15m | 3.9% |
| 3LDK | ¥120,000 | ¥35.49m | 4.1% |
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Do older Hiroshima apartments still give the best yields?
Older Hiroshima apartments still give buyers the easiest route to higher yields because their purchase prices fall much faster than their rents.
The latest LIFULL HOME'S valuation data make the age discount easy to see. In Asaminami-ku, for example, a 70 m² apartment is estimated at about ¥30.07 million at five years old, ¥28.58 million at ten years, ¥25.59 million at twenty years and ¥22.60 million at thirty years.
A thirty-year-old apartment therefore costs roughly 25% less than the five-year benchmark. Rent rarely drops by the same 25% simply because the building has aged, particularly when the apartment has been renovated and still has good rail or Astram Line access.
Current listings show the extreme end of this pattern. Rakumachi recently had a 55-year-old Funairi unit asking only ¥5 million while collecting ¥49,000 a month. That creates an 11.76% headline yield.
Age eventually stops being an advantage. Once we get into buildings from the 1970s and early 1980s, elevator replacement, waterproofing, plumbing, seismic standards, repair reserves and resale liquidity can outweigh the extra rent yield.
For Hiroshima, the more interesting hunting ground is usually older rather than ancient: roughly 15 to 30 years can offer a meaningful price discount without forcing us into the riskiest buildings.
| Building age example in Asaminami-ku | Estimated 70 m² value | Discount vs 5-year-old unit |
|---|---|---|
| 5 years | ¥30.07m | — |
| 10 years | ¥28.58m | 5% |
| 20 years | ¥25.59m | 15% |
| 30 years | ¥22.60m | 25% |
Are small Hiroshima apartments better for rental yield than family apartments?
Small older Hiroshima apartments can produce much higher headline yields than family units, but the advantage gets smaller once tenant turnover and building costs enter the calculation.
Current Hiroshima City rents are modest at the small end. AtHome puts a typical 1K at about ¥45,000 a month and a studio at ¥43,000. In Naka-ku, a 1K averages around ¥49,100.
Those rents become extremely powerful when the property costs only ¥3 million to ¥6 million. Rakumachi currently shows one 48-year-old Naka-ku unit asking ¥5 million with ¥49,000 monthly rent, creating an 11.76% gross yield. Another older Naka-ku unit at ¥3.5 million is advertised at 13.71%.
Family apartments generally require much more capital. Their yields tend to be lower, although longer tenant stays can make the income more stable.
A vacancy also hurts a tiny high-yield unit quickly. Two empty months on an apartment earning ¥49,000 means losing ¥98,000, before cleaning, advertising or tenant-placement costs. That wipes out a meaningful piece of the apparent yield advantage.
For investors who want maximum headline income, small old units win. For a less fragile Hiroshima rental business, we would often prefer a good 1LDK, 2LDK or modest family apartment even at a lower gross percentage.
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Can you realistically get a 7% rental yield in Hiroshima?
A 7% gross rental yield is achievable in Hiroshima today, but it usually requires buying below the mainstream price level or accepting an older building.
The arithmetic is straightforward. A Hiroshima apartment renting for ¥50,000 a month produces ¥600,000 a year. To reach 7% gross, we need to buy it for about ¥8.6 million. An apartment renting for ¥80,000 needs to cost roughly ¥13.7 million.
Those price points exist. They become harder to find in newer Naka-ku, Hiroshima Station or other premium locations, where prices are simply too high relative to rents.
Current investment listings provide a useful reality check. A 2009-built 29.66 m² Funairi unit was recently offered around ¥13.8 million with a 5.47% yield. In the same broader area, much older stock can jump above 10% because the acquisition price collapses.
So 7% sits in a useful middle ground. It is aggressive enough that the buyer has to work for it, but it does not require buying the absolute bottom of the housing stock.
We would consider a genuine 6.5% to 7% deal in a decent building much more interesting than an effortless-looking 12% listing in a building approaching sixty years old.
When should an 8% to 12% Hiroshima yield make you suspicious?
Once a Hiroshima apartment advertises an 8% to 12% yield, we would assume there is a reason for the discount until the property proves otherwise.
Two current Naka-ku listings make the point clearly. One apartment in Funairi-Saiwai-cho is advertised at ¥5 million with ¥588,000 of annual rent, giving 11.76%. It is only five minutes from the tram, which sounds excellent, but the building dates from 1971.
Another Naka-ku unit currently advertised at the same ¥5 million and 11.76% yield dates from 1978. A separate 1984 unit listed at ¥3.5 million reaches 13.71%.
These are real yields rather than imaginary spreadsheet opportunities, yet the common thread is obvious: all three apartments are roughly four to five decades old.
At that age, we want to know far more than the rent. How much money is actually sitting in the building's repair reserve? Have major exterior works already been completed? Is the plumbing original? Does the building have an elevator, and what happens when it needs replacing? Can a future buyer get financing on the unit?
Double-digit yield in Hiroshima is currently available. We just would not confuse availability with cheapness.
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How much can vacancy hurt a Hiroshima rental yield?
Vacancy is a real Hiroshima risk, especially in the older rental stock, and a landlord who underwrites permanent occupancy is overstating the return.
The latest full Housing and Land Survey counted about 73,700 vacant homes in Hiroshima City, equal to 11.7% of the housing stock. That remained below the Hiroshima Prefecture rate of 15.8% and the national rate of 13.8%.
The more relevant number for landlords is the type of vacancy. Roughly 46,400 of Hiroshima City's vacant homes were rental properties. Rental stock accounted for close to two-thirds of all vacancies.
At the same time, Hiroshima still has a deep renter base. The city counted around 235,900 occupied rental homes, while Naka-ku remains particularly renter-heavy.
So tenants have not disappeared. Competition between landlords is the bigger issue. An ordinary apartment can rent well while a dated unit nearby sits empty because the owner refuses to renovate or cut the asking rent.
For a 6% gross-yield property, one month of vacancy cuts collected annual rent by about 8.3%. Before any other expense, that turns a 6% scheduled yield into roughly 5.5% for that year. Vacancy becomes even more painful when tenant turnover also triggers cleaning and agent fees.
What does a 5% gross Hiroshima rental yield become after costs?
A 5% gross Hiroshima rental yield can easily end up around 3% to 4% before financing and income tax once we count the costs that listing portals leave out.
Imagine buying a Hiroshima condominium for ¥20 million and collecting ¥1 million a year in rent. The advertised yield is exactly 5%.
If management costs 5% of rent, we lose ¥50,000. Allowing half a month of vacancy per year removes another roughly ¥42,000. Suppose the owner then pays ¥180,000 annually in management charges and repair-reserve contributions, plus another ¥100,000 for fixed-asset tax, insurance and routine owner repairs.
Cash income falls to about ¥628,000. That is a 3.1% return on the ¥20 million purchase price before mortgage payments and personal taxation.
Buying costs dilute the return further. Brokerage, registration, real-estate acquisition tax and professional fees mean the investor commits more cash than the advertised property price. If that ¥20 million apartment costs ¥21.4 million all-in, the original ¥1 million of rent already represents only 4.7% gross on the money actually spent.
The exact expenses vary enormously from one building to another, so we would never mechanically subtract the same percentage from every Hiroshima deal. Still, a 5% headline yield should not be mentally filed as a 5% investment return.
| Illustrative ¥20m Hiroshima apartment | Annual amount |
|---|---|
| Scheduled rent | ¥1,000,000 |
| Headline gross yield | 5.0% |
| Management assumption | -¥50,000 |
| Vacancy allowance | -¥42,000 |
| Building fees and reserve | -¥180,000 |
| Tax, insurance and routine repairs | -¥100,000 |
| Remaining property-level cash | ¥628,000 |
| Yield before financing and income tax | 3.1% |
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Are Hiroshima property prices still squeezing rental yields now?
Hiroshima apartment prices remain expensive enough to keep yields compressed, but the latest data suggest the sharpest price pressure has cooled in the main central wards.
LIFULL HOME'S currently puts the average 70 m² resale asking price at ¥32.05 million in Naka-ku and ¥27.92 million in Minami-ku. Both are expensive enough relative to rents that representative family-apartment yields sit around 4%.
The longer trend explains how we got here. LIFULL's comparable ten-year-old, 70 m² measure shows Naka-ku apartment values rising about 4.8% over three years and Minami-ku about 4.6%.
The latest annual movement is much calmer. On the same methodology, Naka-ku was only about 0.1% higher than a year earlier, while Minami-ku was around 0.3% lower.
Hiroshima buyers are still living with the higher prices created over the previous few years, yet the latest asking-price data do not show another violent leg upward in these central wards.
For yield investors, that is mildly encouraging. If rents keep holding while resale prices flatten, gross yields can slowly improve again without requiring a property-price crash.
Today's Hiroshima market therefore looks yield-compressed already, rather than one where yields are still being squeezed at speed.
Should you pay more for a Hiroshima apartment close to a station?
Good station access is worth paying for in Hiroshima, but investors can easily overpay for it and give away most of the rental yield.
The current Hiroshima Station numbers show exactly how this works. A 3LDK rents for roughly ¥120,000 a month, one of the strongest rent levels in the city. Yet the average resale asking price for a 3LDK around the station is also about ¥35.5 million, leaving a gross yield near 4%.
Move into cheaper parts of Asaminami-ku and rents fall, but acquisition prices can fall faster. Around Nakasuji Station, for example, AtHome currently shows 3LDK rents around ¥87,400. The wider Asaminami-ku 70 m² resale benchmark is only about ¥19.3 million.
We would therefore rather buy a genuinely convenient apartment at the right price than automatically pay the premium attached to Hiroshima's biggest station.
Five or ten minutes from a useful JR, Astram Line or tram stop can still be excellent. What matters is whether the rent premium compensates for the purchase-price premium.
In Hiroshima today, the best yield often sits one step away from the location everyone immediately wants.
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What rental yield should investors actually target in Hiroshima today?
We would currently target roughly 5.5% to 7% gross in Hiroshima for a yield-focused apartment and accept 4% to 5% when the property has unusually strong location, age or resale quality.
That range is demanding without becoming unrealistic. Current asking data put ordinary family-unit rent-to-price ratios around 4% in central Hiroshima and around 5% in several cheaper wards. Investment listings then show that better yields become available as the building gets older or the purchase price falls.
A 6% or 6.5% apartment in a healthy building can therefore be a very good Hiroshima income deal. A 4% apartment around Hiroshima Station may also make sense when the investor cares more about tenant demand and eventual resale. Once yields move above 8%, we would start spending more time studying the building than celebrating the percentage.
The biggest mistake is aiming for the highest number on Rakumachi. Hiroshima currently offers double-digit yields precisely because some apartments are forty or fifty years old and trade for only a few million yen.
So what rental yield can you get in Hiroshima now? Roughly 4% to 6% gross covers much of the normal market, around 6% to 7% is a realistic target for a disciplined yield investor, and 8% to 12% belongs to a much riskier part of the market.
For us, the most attractive Hiroshima deal today would sit around 6% gross, perhaps a little higher, in a building we would still be comfortable owning ten years from now.
OUR METHODOLOGY
This analysis estimates what rental yield an investor can realistically get in Hiroshima today by combining current asking rents, resale asking prices, live investment listings, building-age evidence and official vacancy statistics. We use those sources together because no single citywide yield figure captures the differences between Hiroshima's wards, property ages and apartment sizes.
AtHome is used primarily for the income side of the market. Its Hiroshima City and ward-level rental pages provide current asking rents by layout, while its Hiroshima Station data allow us to compare rents around one of the city's strongest rental locations. AtHome says its rent benchmarks are calculated from properties listed during the most recent three months.
LIFULL HOME'S provides the main resale-price framework. We use its 70 m² resale asking-price estimates to compare wards including Naka-ku, Minami-ku, Nishi-ku, Higashi-ku, Asaminami-ku, Asakita-ku, Aki-ku and Saeki-ku. Its age-based estimates are also used to examine how apartment values change as buildings get older.
Where we compare AtHome rents with LIFULL resale prices, the result is an indicative market yield rather than a property-level underwriting figure. The two datasets do not necessarily describe the same apartments. We use the comparison to see where purchase prices are high or low relative to rents, then test those conclusions against investable properties currently on the market.
Rakumachi is used for that reality check. Current Funairi and Naka-ku investment listings show what advertised yields are actually available across newer and much older stock, including a 2009-built apartment around 5.47% and older units above 10%. We treat those headline yields as starting points rather than net returns because building costs, vacancy and other owner expenses still have to be deducted.
Official Hiroshima City housing statistics are used for the broader vacancy context, including the city's 73,700 vacant homes, 11.7% vacancy rate and roughly 46,400 vacant rental properties. This helps distinguish weak individual properties from a city where rental demand has disappeared entirely.
We give more weight to conclusions supported by several types of evidence. A high-yield listing does not define Hiroshima on its own, and an expensive central apartment does not define it either. The final 4% to 6% mainstream range and 6% to 7% yield-focused target come from where current rents, purchase prices and live investment stock broadly converge.
Key sources include: AtHome's Hiroshima City rental benchmarks, AtHome's Hiroshima Station rental data, LIFULL HOME'S Naka-ku resale data, LIFULL HOME'S Asaminami-ku resale and building-age data, Rakumachi's current Funairi investment stock, Rakumachi's 11.76% Funairi example, and Hiroshima City's official housing and vacancy statistics.
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