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Is it becoming cheaper to buy than rent in Tokyo?

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SUMMARY

Yes, it is becoming cheaper to buy than rent in Tokyo, but only for buyers with substantial cash, a low variable mortgage rate and a long enough holding period.

The shift is being driven less by suddenly cheap condos than by rents catching up. Tokyo condo rents are still climbing while resale asking prices have finally started to soften at the margin.

The citywide price-to-rent ratio is still demanding. A roughly ¥127 million resale condo against about ¥4.33 million of annual rent implies a gross yield near 3.4%, so Tokyo housing is not broadly cheap relative to rent.

Financing now decides much of the outcome. With 20% down and a variable rate near 1.2%, mortgage payments plus normal building charges can fall below the rent on a comparable 70 m² apartment.

That apparent win is fragile. Move from 80% to 90% financing, add taxes and insurance, or use a long-term fixed mortgage, and much or all of the monthly advantage disappears.

The down payment is doing more work than a normal mortgage-versus-rent comparison suggests. Tying up roughly ¥25 million lowers the mortgage bill, but it also gives up liquidity and whatever return that capital could have earned elsewhere.

Resale looks much more rational than new-build for buyers focused on economics. Current new-condo prices per square metre sit far above resale transaction levels, and renters usually do not pay anything close to that same new-build premium.

Holding period matters almost as much as mortgage rate. Tokyo transaction costs make short ownership periods expensive, so a buyer who may move within three to five years still has a strong reason to rent.

The best opportunities are unlikely to be in the prestige core. Outer wards can offer a much better relationship between purchase price and rent, and smaller loan balances reduce the damage if mortgage rates rise.

The turning point is real, but narrow. Renting no longer wins automatically in Tokyo; buying has started to win for a specific buyer profile, while highly leveraged, short-term or fixed-rate buyers should still be cautious.

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Are Tokyo rents finally high enough to make buying look cheap?

Tokyo rents are rising fast enough to make buying much more competitive today, but Tokyo condos are still expensive compared with the rent they save you.

Tokyo Kantei's latest reading puts rents for privately owned condominiums in the 23 wards at ¥5,157 per square metre per month. For a 70 m² apartment, that works out to roughly ¥361,000 a month, or ¥4.33 million a year.

The same firm's standardized asking price for a 70 m² resale condo is currently about ¥127.24 million.

Put those two numbers together and the property costs about 29 times its annual rent. The implied gross rental yield is only around 3.4%.

That ratio is a better starting point than simply saying "Tokyo rents are expensive." They are expensive, and they are still rising. At Home has also been recording repeated rent highs across the 23 wards, including long runs of record asking rents for several apartment sizes. But purchase prices had already climbed so far that rents are still playing catch-up.

The direction has clearly improved for buyers. The crossover has not happened across Tokyo as a whole.

Tokyo 23-ward benchmark Current level What we learn from it Lean
70 m² resale condo ~¥127.24m Purchase prices remain extremely high Rent
Condo rent ¥5,157/m²/month Rents are still rising Buy
70 m² equivalent rent ~¥361k/month Renting is no longer cheap Buy
Gross yield ~3.4% Price remains high relative to rent Rent
Price / annual rent ~29x Buyer needs cheap financing or a long stay Rent

Can a Tokyo mortgage actually cost less than rent today?

Yes. With a 20% down payment and a cheap variable mortgage, a Tokyo buyer can currently get the monthly mortgage below the rent on a comparable condo.

Using the same 70 m² Tokyo benchmark, a 20% down payment leaves a mortgage of about ¥101.8 million.

MUFG currently advertises a 1.195% variable rate for qualifying new borrowers. Over 35 years, we calculate a payment of roughly ¥297,000 a month.

The comparable rent is around ¥361,000.

That leaves what initially looks like a large ¥64,000 monthly advantage for buying.

Owners still have building charges, though. The latest REINS study found that management fees and repair-reserve contributions averaged a combined ¥434 per square metre per month across Greater Tokyo resale condominiums. On 70 m², that is around ¥30,000.

Mortgage plus those charges comes to about ¥327,000. Buying is still roughly ¥34,000 below rent before property tax, insurance and other costs.

So the basic claim is no longer ridiculous. For cash-rich buyers using today's cheapest variable loans, buying can already cost less each month than renting a similar Tokyo condo.

The ¥25 million-plus down payment is doing a lot of the work. We will come back to that.

70 m² Tokyo example Approx. monthly cash outflow
Rent ¥361k
80% mortgage at 1.195% ¥297k
Management + repair reserve ¥30k
Mortgage + building charges ¥327k
Buyer's apparent advantage before tax ~¥34k

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What if you don't have a 20% down payment in Tokyo?

With 90% financing, the Tokyo buy-versus-rent advantage basically disappears at today's prices.

Financing 90% of our benchmark condo means borrowing about ¥114.5 million. At 1.195% over 35 years, the monthly mortgage comes to roughly ¥334,000.

Add around ¥30,000 for management and the repair reserve and we reach about ¥364,000.

That is already fractionally above comparable rent before property tax, insurance or repairs inside the apartment.

At 100% financing, the mortgage itself climbs to roughly ¥371,000. Standard building charges take the monthly bill above ¥400,000.

This gives us a fairly clean dividing line. The households for whom buying looks cheaper today tend to be the households already bringing a large amount of cash.

Someone who needs almost the entire purchase price financed gets a very different answer.

Financing Mortgage at 1.195% + building charges Compared with ~¥361k rent
80% LTV ~¥297k ~¥327k Buying cheaper
90% LTV ~¥334k ~¥364k Roughly tied before tax
100% LTV ~¥371k ~¥401k Renting cheaper

Are cheap Japanese mortgage rates still saving Tokyo buyers?

Cheap variable mortgages are currently carrying much of the case for buying in Tokyo, and the comparison becomes far less attractive once we use a fixed rate.

MUFG's current 1.195% variable offer is still remarkably low for someone borrowing ¥100 million or more. It keeps the payment on our example near ¥297,000.

Now compare that with long-term fixed borrowing.

The Japan Housing Finance Agency currently lists 3.46% as the most common Flat 35 rate for a 21-to-35-year mortgage with financing of 90% or less. MUFG's own full-term fixed rate for 31 to 35 years is currently 4.30%.

Using 3.46%, our 80%-financed mortgage jumps to roughly ¥418,000 a month. Add the usual condominium charges and we are around ¥449,000.

At 4.30%, the mortgage alone is roughly ¥469,000, taking the housing bill to around ¥500,000 before property tax.

Suddenly the renter paying roughly ¥361,000 looks cheap.

This is why blanket claims about "buy versus rent in Tokyo" are unreliable. The same apartment can look attractive at a 1.2% variable rate and expensive at a 3.5% fixed rate.

Financing example Mortgage + building charges Versus rent
1.195% variable ~¥297k ~¥327k Buyer ahead
3.46% Flat 35 ~¥418k ~¥449k Renter ahead by ~¥88k
4.30% full-term fixed ~¥469k ~¥500k Renter ahead by ~¥139k

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Isn't mortgage principal basically money you keep?

Yes. A large part of a Tokyo buyer's mortgage payment becomes equity, so treating the whole mortgage payment as a housing cost makes buying look worse than it really is.

Rent disappears every month. Principal repayment does not.

On a low-rate mortgage, particularly in the first few years, that distinction is important because the interest component is relatively small compared with the amount used to reduce the outstanding loan.

Suppose our buyer pays roughly ¥297,000 a month. Comparing that full ¥297,000 with ¥361,000 of rent is useful for cash flow, but it is not a clean comparison of economic cost.

A better calculation includes mortgage interest, management fees, repair reserves, property taxes, purchase and sale costs, the return the buyer gives up by putting cash into the apartment, and whatever eventually happens to the property's resale value.

That more complete calculation helps buyers in one respect: today's very low variable rates mean the pure interest cost can still be quite small.

Tokyo's huge purchase prices push the other way because buyers need so much capital to access that cheap financing.

Is a 3.4% Tokyo condo yield actually low?

Yes. A gross yield around 3.4% tells us that Tokyo resale condos remain expensive relative to rent, even after the latest run-up in rents.

Think about what a buyer is purchasing. A condo worth well above ¥100 million currently provides housing that the rental market values at only a few million yen a year.

And 3.4% is the gross figure.

An investor would still need to pay management costs, repair reserves, property taxes, insurance, maintenance and potentially vacancy costs. An owner-occupier avoids vacancy but still faces most of the other expenses.

The useful lesson for someone buying a home is that Tokyo prices do not currently offer a huge amount of housing consumption for every yen invested.

Something else has to make the deal work.

Right now, that something can be a very cheap mortgage. Over a longer period it could also be rising rents, capital appreciation or simply staying long enough for ownership costs to be spread over many years.

If none of those happens, renting remains difficult to beat financially.

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Are Tokyo rents now catching up while condo prices cool?

Yes. This is probably the biggest recent change in the Tokyo buy-versus-rent equation: rents are still climbing while resale asking prices have finally stopped rising every month.

Tokyo Kantei recorded a 0.8% monthly decline in its 23-ward 70 m² resale benchmark after 25 consecutive monthly increases. The following reading slipped another 0.1%.

Two months do not make a property downturn, but the detail underneath the headline is more interesting. Tokyo Kantei has reported more properties coming onto the market in central Tokyo and a wider spread of sellers cutting asking prices.

Meanwhile, its 23-ward rent index increased for two consecutive months and reached a new high in the latest reading. At Home's separate asking-rent data have also shown unusually persistent increases, particularly in apartment categories used by singles and couples.

That combination helps buyers even when property prices do not fall much. If purchase prices sit still for several years while rents rise, the huge price-to-rent gap gradually shrinks.

For example, a ¥360,000 monthly rent growing at 3% a year reaches roughly ¥417,000 after five years. A purchase price that stays flat does not have to crash for the buying equation to improve.

The unknown is mortgage rates. If borrowing costs rise just as fast, part of that improvement gets cancelled.

The rent-versus-price divergence deserves more attention than a single monthly condo-price decline.

Is buying a new Tokyo condo much worse than buying resale?

Usually yes. Today's new-build premium makes the financial case for buying versus renting considerably harder.

According to the Real Estate Economic Institute, the average new condominium in Tokyo's 23 wards reached ¥142.49 million in the first half of the year, up 9.1% year on year and a record for that period.

Across Greater Tokyo, the average passed ¥100 million for the first time in a first-half period.

Those averages are distorted upward by expensive projects, so we should not pretend an ordinary household automatically needs ¥140 million. Still, they tell us something important about the market buyers face.

New construction has become exceptionally expensive.

The same Real Estate Economic Institute data put the average new-build price per square metre in the 23 wards at roughly ¥2.23 million. REINS resale transactions were around ¥1.36 million per square metre in its latest monthly dataset.

The measures are not perfectly identical, but the gap is enormous: new stock is roughly 60% more expensive per square metre.

A renter rarely pays a 60% premium just because the apartment was completed recently. Someone buying new can.

For a household whose main goal is to make ownership beat renting financially, resale deserves much more attention.

Tokyo 23 wards Approx. price level What it means
New condo average ¥142.49m Record-level entry price
New condo price/m² ~¥2.23m Very large premium
Resale transaction price/m² ~¥1.36m Considerably cheaper stock
Approx. new-build premium/m² ~64% Hard to recover through rent savings

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How much do condo fees and property taxes hurt Tokyo buyers?

Recurring ownership costs can wipe out a small monthly saving surprisingly quickly, and those costs are rising too.

REINS' latest full-year study found average management fees of ¥13,895 per month and average repair-reserve contributions of ¥13,910 for completed Greater Tokyo resale-condo transactions.

Together that is ¥27,805 per apartment.

The per-square-metre figure rose to ¥434, up 3.1% in one year. Repair reserves alone rose 5.8% per square metre.

Homeowners have their own version of housing inflation. A fixed mortgage payment does not mean a fixed total housing bill.

Tokyo owners also pay fixed-asset tax and city-planning tax. The headline statutory rates in the 23 wards are generally 1.4% and 0.3% respectively, although the taxable value is very different from the property's market price and residential land receives substantial reductions.

That prevents us from responsibly assigning one universal monthly tax bill to every ¥100 million condo.

Japan's mortgage tax deduction can offset part of these costs for qualifying owner-occupiers. The benefit depends on the property, household and applicable mortgage-balance cap, so it can improve the calculation without turning a weak purchase into an obviously cheap one.

The practical point is simpler. When our cheap-variable-rate buyer is only around ¥34,000 a month ahead after normal building charges, taxes and other ownership costs have enough room to close much of that gap.

Does the down payment make renting cheaper than it first looks?

Yes. Locking ¥20 million or ¥30 million into a Tokyo condo has a real financial cost even though the money becomes home equity.

Our 80%-financed example requires more than ¥25 million upfront before transaction costs.

A simple mortgage-versus-rent calculator usually ignores what the renter could do with that money.

If ¥25 million earned 3% annually elsewhere, that would represent about ¥750,000 of potential first-year return before tax. At 5%, the figure rises above ¥1.25 million.

Neither return is guaranteed, and comparing a home with an investment portfolio introduces different risks. Still, a down payment cannot sensibly be treated as free.

The buyer gains leverage on the property and reduces the monthly mortgage. The renter keeps considerably more liquid capital.

This becomes especially important in Tokyo because the absolute amounts are so large. A 20% down payment on an inexpensive apartment is one thing. Twenty percent of a ¥120 million-plus condo is enough capital to change a household's entire balance sheet.

Capital kept outside the property Illustrative return First-year return Monthly equivalent
¥25.45m at 1% 1% ~¥255k ~¥21k
¥25.45m at 3% 3% ~¥764k ~¥64k
¥25.45m at 5% 5% ~¥1.27m ~¥106k

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How long do you need to stay in Tokyo before buying makes sense?

For someone likely to leave within three to five years, renting still has a major advantage; buying becomes much more convincing once the expected stay moves toward ten, fifteen or twenty years.

Tokyo property is expensive to enter and expensive to exit.

For higher-value properties, the familiar statutory brokerage-fee ceiling works out to roughly 3% of the transaction price plus ¥60,000 before consumption tax. On a ¥100 million-plus resale condo, one side of the transaction can therefore involve several million yen of brokerage fees.

Buy and later sell through brokers and the round-trip cost can become very large before registration expenses, mortgage fees and other acquisition costs are counted.

That is brutal over a short holding period.

Over twenty years, the same transaction costs matter much less per year. The buyer also has much more time to repay principal and benefit if rents keep rising.

Property-price risk changes with time too. A 5% decline shortly after purchase can wipe out a large share of the buyer's initial equity once selling costs are included. Someone staying for decades has far more flexibility about when to sell.

There is no magic year when buying automatically wins. But the direction is clear enough to make a strong call: people who are unsure they will still need the same Tokyo home five years from now should be very cautious about buying it purely to save on rent.

Could higher mortgage rates ruin the case for buying in Tokyo?

Yes. Rising mortgage rates are the biggest threat to today's argument that buying can be cheaper than renting.

The Bank of Japan has already moved far away from the old negative-rate world, and its recent policy communication still leaves room for further tightening if inflation and the economy develop as expected.

Japanese mortgage pricing has followed.

Variable mortgages remain cheap, but they are no longer sitting at the extreme lows borrowers enjoyed before monetary normalization. Long-term fixed rates show the change much more clearly. Flat 35's most common 21-to-35-year rate is currently 3.46%, compared with levels below 2% only a couple of years ago.

On a small mortgage, a one-point move may be manageable.

Tokyo buyers often borrow ¥80 million, ¥100 million or more. At those balances, relatively small rate changes translate into serious money.

Banks also have different rules governing how variable rates and monthly repayments adjust, so a Bank of Japan move does not necessarily hit every borrower's monthly payment immediately.

The economic exposure still exists.

Anyone buying because the mortgage is ¥30,000 cheaper than rent today should stress-test the loan at a materially higher rate. If the purchase only works at the promotional rate displayed on the bank's website, the margin of safety is too thin.

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Would falling Tokyo condo prices make it smarter to wait?

For a renter who has not bought yet, even a modest Tokyo condo correction would improve the buying equation quite quickly.

Consider a property that falls 10% while its market rent barely changes.

The buyer needs a smaller down payment, borrows less money and receives the same housing value. The implied rental yield rises too.

That would be especially useful in today's market because financing costs have moved higher. Falling purchase prices are one of the cleanest ways to compensate buyers for higher mortgage rates.

There are now enough signs of price resistance to take this possibility seriously. Tokyo Kantei's standardized 23-ward benchmark has declined for two months after more than two years of uninterrupted monthly increases. Separate REINS data for Greater Tokyo have recently shown weaker resale contract volume and rising unsold stock.

We should not turn that into a prediction of a crash. New-build prices remain extremely high, resale transaction prices in the 23 wards are still above year-earlier levels, rents are firm and central Tokyo continues to attract buyers.

A flat market may be enough.

If condo prices simply spend a few years doing very little while Tokyo rents keep climbing, buyers get a better entry point without needing a dramatic downturn.

Purchase-price move Price on ¥120m property If rent stays at ¥350k Gross yield
No change ¥120m ¥350k/month 3.5%
-5% ¥114m ¥350k/month 3.7%
-10% ¥108m ¥350k/month 3.9%
-20% ¥96m ¥350k/month 4.4%

Is buying cheaper in Tokyo's outer wards than in central Tokyo?

Often yes. Buyers who move away from Tokyo's prestige districts can find a much more sensible relationship between purchase price and rent.

"Tokyo" covers housing markets that barely resemble one another.

A condo in Minato, Chiyoda or Shibuya carries a huge land and scarcity premium. Buyers are paying for centrality, prestige, redevelopment potential and the expectation that highly desirable locations will remain liquid.

Rents are also high there, but rent does not always rise in proportion to the purchase price.

Move farther out and the absolute numbers change dramatically. Adachi, Katsushika, Edogawa and parts of Nerima can offer apartments at a fraction of central-Tokyo purchase prices while still having strong rail access and large pools of local tenants.

That lower purchase price also cuts mortgage-rate risk. Borrowing ¥50 million when rates move up hurts much less than borrowing ¥100 million.

For a buyer interested mainly in having a home rather than owning a trophy postcode, the best Tokyo buy-versus-rent opportunities are more likely to appear around specific outer-ward stations than in the most famous central neighborhoods.

We would compare actual sale prices and actual rents within walking distance of the same station. Tokyo-wide averages are too crude for that decision.

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Does buying work better for Tokyo families than for singles?

Buying often makes more sense for Tokyo families because families tend to stay longer and larger rental apartments have become increasingly expensive.

At Home's recent data show broad year-on-year rent increases across the 23 wards, with especially persistent records in several apartment categories used by couples and households needing more space.

That creates two advantages for a potential family buyer.

First, the rent being avoided is larger.

Second, families often have more reason to remain in the same neighborhood because of schools, childcare, commuting patterns and the cost of repeatedly moving a household.

A longer stay is exactly what improves the financial case for buying.

Singles have more flexibility. Someone renting a compact unit can move to another station, change apartment size or leave Tokyo entirely with relatively little financial friction. Buying removes some of that flexibility.

Families do face one major problem: larger apartments require larger mortgages.

A household paying ¥300,000 or ¥400,000 in rent may be tempted by ownership, but replacing that rent with a ¥100 million mortgage introduces a completely different level of interest-rate and balance-sheet risk.

So families have a stronger reason to buy, but they also have more to lose if they overpay.

Could today's Tokyo purchase look cheap after another decade of rent increases?

Yes. Continued Tokyo rent inflation is probably the clearest way today's expensive purchase could become a very good decision later.

Take a monthly rent of ¥360,000.

At 1% annual growth, it reaches about ¥398,000 after ten years. At 3%, it reaches roughly ¥484,000. At 5%, the rent is close to ¥586,000.

That compounding is powerful because the owner already fixed the purchase price on day one.

A fixed-rate borrower also fixes the financing cost. A variable-rate borrower has less certainty, but the basic hedge against future rent increases remains.

The difficult part is assuming how long the current rental boom will last.

Tokyo has spent long periods with weak rent growth. The latest increases are meaningful because they have lasted across multiple datasets and apartment categories, but we still do not have enough evidence to assume 3% or 5% rent inflation for the next decade.

A buyer does not need anything that extreme for the calculation to improve.

Even several years of rent growth combined with flat condo prices would shift the balance toward ownership.

Annual rent growth from ¥360k After 5 years After 10 years Buy-vs-rent effect
0% ¥360k ¥360k Little help to buyer
1% ~¥378k ~¥398k Gradual improvement
3% ~¥417k ~¥484k Stronger case for buying
5% ~¥459k ~¥586k Today's purchase could age very well

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So, is it becoming cheaper to buy than rent in Tokyo?

Yes, buying is becoming cheaper relative to renting in Tokyo, but we are only seeing the crossover for a specific kind of buyer so far.

As seen above, the latest 23-ward numbers put a typical 70 m² resale asking price around ¥127 million while comparable condominium rent is roughly ¥361,000 a month. With 20% down and a 1.195% variable mortgage, we calculate that mortgage plus normal condominium charges can come in near ¥327,000.

That is below rent.

A few years ago, making that comparison was much harder because Tokyo rents had not kept pace with soaring property values. These days rents are rising while resale asking prices have finally started to wobble. The relationship is moving in the buyer's favor.

The answer changes immediately when the financing changes, though. At today's 3.46% common Flat 35 rate, the same heavily financed purchase costs far more each month than renting. Someone borrowing 90% or 100% also loses most or all of the apparent saving even at a cheap variable rate.

Short holding periods are another deal-breaker. Tokyo's transaction costs are too large to assume that a few years of mortgage payments will automatically beat rent.

The buyer who currently has the strongest case is fairly easy to identify: someone with substantial cash, access to a low mortgage rate, a plan to stay for many years and the discipline to buy a reasonably priced resale apartment rather than stretch for an expensive new development.

For that household, buying in Tokyo can already be cheaper than renting, and longer-term economics may look better still if rents keep rising.

A highly leveraged buyer, someone taking a fixed rate above 3%, or someone unsure where they will live five years from now should still lean toward renting.

Tokyo has reached a genuine turning point in the buy-versus-rent debate. Renting no longer wins automatically.

Buying has started to win too, but only when the property, financing and holding period are right.

OUR METHODOLOGY

This analysis tests whether it is becoming cheaper to buy than rent in Tokyo by comparing the parts of the decision that can materially change the result: purchase prices, rents, mortgage rates, leverage, recurring ownership costs, the capital tied up in a down payment, holding period, new versus resale pricing, location and the recent direction of the market.

For each part, we used the freshest source that addressed it most directly. Tokyo Kantei is the main benchmark for the standardized 70 m² resale-condo price and condominium rents in the Tokyo 23 wards, while At Home is used to check whether the recent rent increases are broad and persistent across apartment categories.

Financing is tested with current advertised mortgage rates rather than a generic historical average. MUFG provides the variable and full-term fixed examples, while the Japan Housing Finance Agency's Flat 35 rate gives a separate long-term fixed benchmark. We use those rates to calculate comparable 35-year mortgage payments at different loan-to-value ratios.

We treat mortgage cash flow and economic cost as different things. Monthly mortgage payments are useful for comparing what leaves the household's bank account, but principal repayment builds equity, so the broader comparison also considers interest, management fees, repair reserves, taxes, transaction costs and the opportunity cost of the down payment.

The resale and ownership-cost sections rely mainly on REINS data, including resale transaction pricing, market inventory, management fees and repair-reserve contributions. New-build pricing comes from the Real Estate Economic Institute so that the article does not blur the economics of new condominiums and resale stock.

The longer-term scenarios are stress tests rather than forecasts. We vary loan-to-value, mortgage type, rent growth and purchase-price movements to show how quickly the answer can change. The point is not to predict a 3% rent increase or a 10% condo correction, but to test how sensitive the buy-versus-rent decision is to those assumptions.

We also use official public sources where the answer depends on rules rather than market data: the Tokyo Metropolitan Government for fixed-asset and city-planning tax, the National Tax Agency for the housing-loan tax deduction, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism for brokerage-fee rules, and the Bank of Japan for the monetary-policy backdrop.

Key sources used for this analysis include: Tokyo Kantei's 70 m² resale-condo series, Tokyo Kantei's July 2026 condominium-rent report, At Home's July 2026 rental-market report, MUFG's housing-loan rates, the Japan Housing Finance Agency's Flat 35 rates, REINS on management fees and repair reserves, REINS' July 2026 Market Watch dataset, the Real Estate Economic Institute's H1 2026 new-condo report, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's property-tax guidance, the National Tax Agency's mortgage-tax-deduction guidance, MLIT's brokerage-fee rules, and the Bank of Japan's July 2026 outlook.

Buying real estate in Tokyo can be risky

An increasing number of foreign investors are showing interest. However, 90% of them will make mistakes. Avoid the pitfalls with our comprehensive guide.

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