Decent = Japanese style ferro-concrete built within the last 10 to 15 years.

Premium market has been more volatile. The market for properties below around 300k per month has been very steady.

There's some stuff listed at 25 to 30k, but only for very large units in brand new properties in the best locations. The market is very thin, has high vacancy rates and anyone paying much over 20k is a rube.

And..it's easy to get accurate data on market rental rates if you know where to look.

Just for clarification sake, what do you consider to be "very large" units in the best locations ? I am currently interested in moving and the places I have seen bar one (the German landlord kept changing the lease rules through the negotiation so we walked), are NOT very large nor in what I consider desirable places to live.

250 sqm and up... Hiroo, Azabu, Aoyama, etc.

250,000-300,000 for 250 sqm :eek: ? Please point me in the right direction for these nuggets !

I'd be surprised to find 250sqm anything in Azabu, even including 一戸建て :eek:

EDIT: This listing for example is at 1M/month:
http://www.chintai.net/detail/bk_C01005807000619001/

25 to 30k per tsubo.

Have a look at the Ken Coporation site. Most of the high end rental properties get listed there.

So an SRC construction is decent? I would consider that decent 30 years ago maybe. Today steel frame and at least passive dampers is the minimum for a better building.

I cannot afford these and just bought an apartment in older used SRC building in phenomenal condition. It is not however Grade A simply because of how it is constructed.

Central ward units for 300K or less are either going to be very old, very small, very inconveniently located, or built on landfill as we see in Takeshiba. It is a segment of the market which grows in supply regularly as buildings age so yes, since that outstrips demand, I would expect stability there.

25K to 30K per Tsubo is not solely for brand new, not in even the best locations (as that is very subjective). LArge units 200sqm+ is in fact a segment of the market that has seen much supply growth but necessarily new supply growth. As families abandon Tokyo for Singapore, HK, the US etc. the existing supply comes online again. New supply is often put on sale rather than rented and it is being grabbed with a huge appetite by fellow Asians.

So Vacancy rates can be looked at by unit size, location, and even company. Some companies with large units do very well others not so much. Sumitomo is having a challenge so drop prices. This is a very elastic market after all. Others prefer to market skim and run at high 90's percentage levels of occupancy consistently. So actually the assertion of high vacancy is not accurate across the board at this unit size. One must analyze the market in more detail. It is interesting to note that many units go for 30-40K a month. And many of these are not new at all.

And as for accurate market rental rates. No this is simply not true outside of what a developer tells you about their own units and that will be inflated so they look good. Anyone who believes they have access to marketwide and accurate data on real achievable prices is wither an agent, a developer or wrong.

MJM, you always disparage my comments when I inform that it is possible to find nice places at far below the prices that you (and 5K) cite. The Akasaka real estate website data supports my experience, and provides invaluable data about asking prices for neighborhoods, age, etc.. The key difference is that one will pay a hell of lot more per SQM when renting from a big corporation than something independently owned.

It is clear to me that the big corporations (like MJM's employer) prefer to have low occupancy than discount units during downturns like 2008-2012. I think higher asking prices for expat targeted housing is partly driven by the weaker yen.

In our case the house was actually being leased by a big corporation that was also the builder, but the property (and the adjacent identical house) was owned by a private individual. To reduce risk he had a contract where he was paid by the corporation whether the house was rented or not. I have no idea if these arrangements are common in Japan.

p.s. Another anecdote was a beautiful house in Yoyogi-Uehara that was brand new as of 2009 and never rented. It was all marble, roof deck, around 200 SQM and we probably could have rented it for 600k. (The asking price had not been cut by much like the other.)

Sorry to say you are wrong, but you can look at the publicly disclosed information from any of the residential J-REITs and derive precise information on occupancy and rental rates.

It all depends on what we define as "very old, very small, or very inconveniently located". I used to pay 400K for a 100+ square meter gut-renovated unit in a very well-maintained 25 year old high quality building ("Park Mansion") in an absolutely incredible location. This was a few years ago, I doubt rents have risen much since.

Looking for a 55-70 sq. metre place. Have seen quite a few places, from Baba mausoleums to disco danny spaces with ozite carpets original to the era ! Still haven't hit that sweet spot yet......

In which areas are you looking? Because of high occupancy, the market trades very fast so you need to work a couple of brokers to make sure they show you stuff as soon as it comes on the market.

Central areas as described above. I have met and been shown multiple places by multiple agents, again nothing in the sweet spot yet.

Or for a more easily crunchable number, 7.5~9k per sqm ;)

20K per tsubo would be 6k per sqm, so 100sqm is 600k.

Yeah, there are some gems in here. Not really tempted to move yet, just got here after all :)

It's hard to find really nice places, and they get snapped up almost instantly. Especially in the size range you're looking at. Frequent calls to the agents schmoozing them to you email you anything new right away might help.