Japanese people's housing dreams are fading, with housing prices at 10 times annual income

The dream of Japanese people owning their own homes in city centers is gradually fading. Based on lifelong employment, buying a home after marriage, and paying off the mortgage before retirement, this traditional Japanese model has collapsed due to rising housing prices, increasing single-person households, and stagnant real wages. After World War II, Japan implemented long-term policies offering incentives for homeownership, which also ushered in a period of “rebuilding.”

“If this continues, this area will become a neighborhood where ordinary people can’t afford to live,” said Takashi Higuchi, the mayor of Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, expressing a sense of crisis. Due to rising housing prices and rent increases, in July, Chiyoda Ward proposed measures to introduce resale restrictions on real estate to the Real Estate Association affiliated with major real estate companies (Tokyo Chiyoda Ward).

In September, the association stated, “It is necessary to take measures to curb short-term resale activities for speculative purposes.” Some developers have already begun to take countermeasures, such as banning resale within a certain period. However, aside from rising construction costs, excess funds from overseas continue to flow into Japan’s real estate sector. There are still no signs of housing prices stabilizing.

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Japan Economic News Agency and the Financial Times merged into the same media group in November 2015. The alliance formed by the two newspapers, founded in the 19th century in Japan and the UK, respectively, is promoting collaboration across a wide range of fields under the banner of “high-quality, the strongest economic news.” As part of this effort, articles are exchanged between the two newspapers’ Chinese-language websites.