Japanese Property Market Quarterly Review　Second Quarter 2011

Toru Matsumura

■index

1.Economy Outlook
2.Land Price and Market Confidence
3.Sub-sectors
4.Property Investment and J-REIT Markets

■introduction

NLI Research Institute forecasts Japan’s GDP growth at 0.3% in 2011 following the Great EastJapan Earthquake， and 2.1% in 2012 considering the economy has already bottomed out with thesupply chain restoration and production recovery (Chart-1).
Housing starts recorded 63k， 6.4% y-o-y growth， in May 2011 (Chart-2). While the number ofnew apartments increased， that of individual houses declined. Annual new housing starts areforecasted at about 850k in 2011，2 larger than the number in 2010， but it is anticipated thatafter the earlier termination of the Eco-point program3， the housing support policy will bereviewed in order to secure the budget to reconstruct disaster hit areas.
The apartment supply in the Tokyo metropolitan area in May grew 3.6% y-o-y for the first timein three months (Chart-3). Now customer attention is focused on ground stability， locationaltitude and building quake-resistance. The transaction volume in the secondary housingmarket in May decreased for the third consecutive month， with weaker prices affected by theearthquake.

Japanese Property Market Quarterly Review Second Quarter 2011

Toru Matsumura

Japanese Property Market Quarterly Review　Second Quarter 2011