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The Nikkei Shimbun reported on June 4th that mortgage repayment periods in Japan, long commonly treated as having a standard maximum of 35 years, are rapidly stretching longer. The shift is no longer limited to a small group of borrowers. In the Greater Tokyo Area, 32.6 percent of new condominium buyers in 2025 chose repayment periods of 36 years or more, according to Recruit data cited by the Nikkei. Photo by Sumudu Mohottige on Unsplash The trend reflects soaring housing pr

Nippon Steel Kowa Real Estate and the Metropolitan Area Fireproof Building Public Corporation announced on June 2nd that the Takanawa Building Condominium Reconstruction Project in Minato Ward, Tokyo, received approval for its rights conversion plan from Minato Ward earlier in May. The approval marks an important step in a complex rebuild that will convert the aging Takanawa Building from a condominium based on land-use rights into a freehold condominium, while also incorpora

The Japan Housing Finance Agency (JHF) announced on May 29th that fiscal 2025 usage of Reverse 60, its reverse-mortgage-type housing loan for older borrowers, declined year on year, even as all-time applications surpassed 10,000 for the first time since product launch. FY2025 covers the period from April 2025 until the end of March 2026. How Reverse 60 Works Reverse 60 is offered by private financial institutions in partnership with the JHF. It is designed mainly for borrower

For decades, Japan was seen as a lost economy, defined by deflation, weak demand and near-zero interest rates. Jesper Koll, one of Japan’s best-known market strategists, argues that story may finally be changing. In this episode of Macro Sessions, Maggie Lake speaks with Koll about rising wages, stronger consumer demand, renewed corporate investment and growing pricing power across Japan’s economy. The first half of the conversation explains why Japan’s shift away from deflat

Real estate information service provider AtHome released registered price data on May 28th for newly built single-family homes listed on its proper in the Greater Tokyo Area in April 2026. The data covers asking prices per unit for properties registered and publicly listed for consumers on AtHome’s real estate information network. Prices were compiled across eight areas: Tokyo’s 23 wards, Tokyo non-23 wards, Yokohama and Kawasaki, the rest of Kanagawa Prefecture, Saitama City