Hi,

Looking at historical property prices for Japan (http://www.globalpropertyguide.com/real-estate-house-prices/J) it would seem like they're ready to start rising again.

Does anyone have experience in this market? Do you think its a good time to invest?

Is it possible to invest there if I'm a UK resident?

Cheers

Yes it should be possible to buy property here as a UK resident, providing you have funds available or can secure a mortgage.

I've lived in Japan nearly 15 years but I only really have experience of the housing market - detached houses and "mansions" which are basically condominiums.

Land prices seem to have bottomed out about a couple of years ago and are rising a little, but only in certain areas in Tokyo, and some other exclusive urban areas. What will happen in the long term is anyone's guess but I recently had a conversation with a Japanese guy who thinks the aging population in Japan means that ultimately values will fall from current levels.

Last night there was a report on a Japanese news station saying that the prices of newly built mansions are being slashed as they are not selling well, and there's a glut of unsold stock. The pundits on the show seemed to be at a loss to explain why they aren't selling.

Property is not looked at here as an investment for a number of reasons. Firstly this is an earthquake prone country. Houses tend to be built of lightweight materials, mainly wood, gypsum walls etc. so they are less likely to collapse in the event of a quake. But the humid summers and dry winters take their toll, which means that the average life span of a house is 35 to 40 years. After about 25 years only the land will retain value while the actual structure will be virtually worthless. And as Japanese people don't really do anything to maintain their properties, almost everyone looks to buy new-build. Mansions are more solidly built, but there are often hefty maintenance/management fees (up to 35,000Yen a month!) and mansions generally go down in value too, as people still prefer new-build.

However, we were sick of renting our old mansion, so we bought a detached house in November last year. It's where we intend to live for the next thirty years or so and we were not looking at it as an investment but as a way to improve our quality of life. You generally get more square meterage when you buy and our monthly mortgage payments are about the same as the rent we were paying.

Honestly, investing in property in Japan as an non-resident doesn't make much sense to me. However, I don't know about the commercial property market (offices, buy to let etc.).

I'm no expert, but I hope that helps.

Psimon sums it up very well. Japan is nowhere to speculate on property.

You could BTL an apartment, but you have to work on the basis that the property will lose value all the way to zero over 25 years, and the relative value of rents will drop in that time too as people do not want a nasty old apartment.

If the market starts to rise, you could potentially speculate on plots of land.