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BUSINESS
Nov 21, 2016

China's Anbang reportedly may buy $2.3 billion in Japanese property from Blackstone

China's Anbang Insurance Group Co is in talks to buy as much as $2.3 billion in Japanese residential property assets from Blackstone Group , two people involved in the discussions said, in what would be Japan's biggest property deal since the global financial crisis.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Nov 12, 2016

Japan's laundromat bubble shows no sign of bursting

Almost every Japanese household has a washing machine, so why are so many of them using laundromats that cost them extra money?
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Aug 3, 2015

World Heritage site tourism; visualizing Hiroshima's bombing; CM of the Week: Mitsui Real Estate

Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Hakubun Shimomura takes time away from dealing with the new national stadium to make a guest appearance on the travel program "So da, Dokka ni Ikko?" ("Well, Where Shall We Go?"; TV Tokyo, Tues., 6:57 p.m.). Shimomura is there to introduce...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Aug 1, 2015

Your home may be your castle, but not all of it is yours

When we were thinking about buying a condominium some years ago, we looked at older units and brand new ones, and one of our least favorite features was pebbled or fogged window glass, which was ubiquitous. Early on, when we didn't know any better, we asked a real estate agent how much it would cost...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 31, 2015

Japan's tourism boom drives real-estate developers to convert offices into hotels

The surge in tourists visiting Japan is stretching the ability of hotels to accommodate them in a sector constrained by high costs, forcing developers to think out of the box for means to quickly increase lodging options without breaking the bank.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 29, 2015

Tiny House documentary makes Tokyo apartments look like palaces

"Small is Beautiful" is a documentary about the TH (Tiny House) movement, the latest underground trend in housing and real estate in the U.S. In the next few years, though, TH could go mainstream thanks to a growing online community that shares information about what's on the TH market and how to actually...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Feb 9, 2015

Retiring boomers make their last stand on the real estate market

An increasing number of retirees are opting for high-rise living in their twilight years.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Sep 5, 2014

Can Japan level its problem with vacant buildings?

On July 29, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications released the results of its latest survey on Japanese housing, which it completed last fall and conducts every five years. The statistic that caught the media's attention was the one for akiya, or vacant homes. As of the end of October 2013,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
May 5, 2014

Money that must go down the pan

In almost all of Japan's major cities, close to 100 percent of the population are connected to public sewerage systems, but the farther away from cities you get the more the number drops. Tokushima Prefecture is the lowest, at 16.3 percent.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 15, 2014

Orix foresees spending $1.5 billion on takeovers over next 12 months

Orix Corp., Japan's most acquisitive financial firm, plans to spend ¥150 billion on takeovers around the world in the next 12 months, President Makoto Inoue said.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Mar 31, 2014

Japan's 30-year building shelf-life is not quite true

In the past decade or so, certain claims about Japan's housing market have come to be accepted as facts. One is that Japanese houses are only meant to last 30 years.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Mar 3, 2014

In Japan, you can leave it all up to the moving company

It's often described as one of the most stressful events of human life — but in Japan moving house is virtually a breeze.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Feb 3, 2014

The housing conundrum: To own or not to own

The population is not increasing and there's a shrinking pool of potential buyers for the home you bought 20 years ago, or 10 years ago, or even yesterday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Aug 5, 2013

The aging issue of Chiba New Town

The Chiba New Town development project was begun in the late 1960s by the Chiba prefectural government, and a decade later, joined by the Land Development Corporation, the government housing organ that would morph into the Urban Renaissance (UR) Agency in 2004. It is located in the northern part of the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
May 14, 2013

On uneven ground: landfill property pitfalls

After the real estate agent unlocked the front door, the musty smell told us that the house had not been aired for some time. He laid out slippers for us and proceeded to raise the shutters and open the windows. Then, upon entering the kitchen he exclaimed, "Katamuite iru" ("It's uneven").
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Apr 4, 2013

Interest in final resting places never dies

High-rise cemeteries make it possible for the dearly departed to stay in the big city.
EDITORIALS
Sep 25, 2010

Adding value to real estate

Land prices across Japan fell in the year ended July 1 at 21,457, or 98.5 percent, of the 21,786 locations surveyed annually by the land and infrastructure ministry. There was almost no improvement from the previous one-year period, when Japan was hit by the global recession and land prices showed a...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 5, 2010

Niseko's real estate boom: Bigger picture in sight for local development

For some it was a flash in the pan, at best an experiment destined to fail, at worst a mini-bubble hyper-inflated by greedy "outsiders" with little interest other than the type accumulating in the bank.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
May 17, 2009

Lay-judge drama, exotic real estate, and Kimutaku's 'Mr. Brain'

The new lay judge system starts on May 21, so it's not surprising that somebody decided to make a two-hour suspense drama to mark the occasion. However, the subtitle of "Hotei Suspense" ("Trial Suspense"; TBS, Mon., 9 p.m.) sounds like this might not be the best way to promote the new system: "Do you...
BUSINESS
Oct 26, 2008

Japan Post sets eyes on real estate development

Japan Post Holdings Co., with $30 billion' worth of properties across the nation, will redevelop sites in central Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya as it turns to real estate as a new source of profit, a company official said.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Nov 25, 2007

'Best Hit' awards; Kyosen Ohashi tour of Japan; affordable rural real estate

The fifth annual "Best Hit Kayosai (Best Hit Pop Song Festival)" will be broadcast live Monday night at 9 p.m. on the Yomiuri Television network (Nihon TV in Tokyo) from the Osaka Festival Hall.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Feb 14, 2007

From rackets to real estate, yakuza multifaceted

The yakuza have long played a powerful, if often unseen, role in society. Romanticized in literature and film as noble outcasts replete with punch-perms, extensive tattoos and severed pinkies, the underworld is one of archaic language and secretive rituals and customs as well as extreme violence and...

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Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.