Japanese customers reducing housing purchases as mortgage lending hits ten year low April - June 2010

There is a busy of building activity in Tokyo at present. Over the last three months every vacant piece of land seems to be being built on. Local car parks that once had five car spaces have been dug up and flattened and had a house built on the total land size. Huge vacant blocks that have been empty for five years, have been cleared and a single large house has been built. Older shops where the owner has passed away have been bought up by neighbouring shops and demolished. New buildings have been built in their place as some business owners like stationery shops want to expand their businesses. Yet on the other hand, a new house built in January 2009, two storey and less than ten minutes from a train station in Tokyo, have sat unsold for over 20 months. The owners have changed real estate agents twice and have offered to give appliances to the value of 500,000 yen but that didn't work, so recently cut the asking price from 29.8 million yen to 27,8 million yen. The market is certainly in a transition period. The quote below may be indicating that potential buyers have hesitated. There is a lot of building going on but buyers are sitting back, watch, waiting and looking.


"Mortgage Lending Hits 10-Year Low In Apr-June"

Source: Nikkei
Wednesday 18th August, 2010
http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/freetop.aspx