Outlook Reverses, Divergence in Forecasts of Property Price Peak from 2015 to 2018～The Twelfth Japanese Property Market Survey～

mamoru masumiya

Summary

The twelfth annual property market survey indicated that the current sentiment remained strong with “Good” or “Somewhat good” responses accounting for nearly 90% of the responses.
Regarding the six-month outlook, the sum of negative responses outnumbered the positives for the first time since 2008.
When asked which property sectors were the top three preferable investment targets in terms of price appreciation and market growth, “Hotel” overwhelmed other sectors and “Office” declined noticeably.
When asked which risk factors were the top three influential concerns for the property investment market, more respondents chose “Global economy” than “Domestic economy,” and not a small number of respondents chose “Geopolitical risk.”
Regarding the J-REIT market forecast, two-thirds of respondents chose “0~+15%” of return for the TSE REIT index in 2016 and more than 90% of the respondents forecasted that the J-REIT prices will stay within a range of ±15% at the end of 2016.
Finally, when asked about the peak year forecast for property prices in Tokyo, responses were divided into the three periods of “2015 or now,” “2016～the first half of 2017” and “the second half of 2017～2018.”