Land Prices<br />
In Japan<br />
Reverse SlideBy <b>AKANE VALLERY UCHIDA</b> and <b>ANDREW MORSE</b><br />
March 23, 2007<br />
<br />
TOKYO -- Japanese land prices nationwide posted a general rise for the first time in 16 years, a development that could boost the world's second-largest economy by enticing consumers to spend more.<br />
Residential land prices rose an average of 0.1% in 2006, while commercial property prices jumped an average of 2.3%, according to an annual land report issued Thursday by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The rises in both categories marked a sharp break from the previous year, when both residential and commercial property prices slumped an average 2.7%.<br />
Though the ministry no longer publishes an overall number that combines both residential and commercial property prices, the latest data indicate that land prices in general are rising for the first time since 1990, when the country's asset bubble burst. That could bode well for the economy by encouraging ordinary Japanese, who have kept a tight grip on their purse strings throughout a decade and a half of low or no growth, to start spending as the value of their homes begins to increase again.<br />
"The rise is definitely positive for the economy because it will eventually help boost consumption," Bank of America economist and strategist Tomoko Fujii said. Consumers constitute more than half of all Japanese economic activity and are considered an important element for a sustainable recovery.<br />
Price rises were sharpest in Japan's three biggest metropolitan areas -- Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya -- where both residential and commercial properties jumped as stronger regional economies generated greater demand for both housing and business space. Residential prices in the three cities rose an average 2.8%. Commercial properties surged 8.9%, led by a 9.4% jump in Tokyo.<br />
Ministry officials said they weren't concerned by those quick rises and said a land-price spiral, like the one Japan experienced in the late 1980s, wasn't developing.<br />
Rather, they said, a small number of marquee addresses appreciated sharply in value, pulling the averages up with them.<br />
"They should definitely not be taken as signs of a real-estate bubble," Erina Kurose, an official in the ministry's planning department, said of the sharp rises. She noted that plots adjacent to some of the fast risers often had a much lower pace of price appreciation, indicating that the phenomenon was concentrated in specific properties.<br />
Despite the overall rise, some parts of rural Japan continued to slip, but at a much slower pace than a year earlier. In Japan's countryside, residential land declined by 2.7% after dropping 4.2% the previous year.<br />
Commercial land prices retreated an average 2.8% after a 5.5% drop in 2005.<br />
Ministry officials said those price drops were caused by a continuing decline in the rural population, which in turn reduced demand for land.
JAPAN:
% Change as of January 1 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | Average, 2000-2004 | Average,
1995-1999 | All Sites: Japan | 0.4 | -2.8 | -5.0 | -5.7 | -3.4 | Tokyo | 4.6 | -0.7 | -3.2 | -6.2 | -5.6 | Residential: Japan | 0.1 | -2.7 | -4.6 | -5.0 | -2.2 | Tokyo | 3.6 | -0.9 | -3.2 | -5.8 | -4.1 | Commercial: Japan | 2.3 | -2.7 | -5.6 | -7.8 | -8.4 | Tokyo | 9.4 | 1.0 | -2.5 | -7.1 | -12.8 | Industrial: Japan | -1.8 | -4.9 | -7.4 | -7.0 | -3.1 | Tokyo | 0.9 | -4.1 | -7.4 | -9.6 | -6.0 |
[ 本帖最后由 henry 于 2007-3-25 13:27 编辑 ] |