Tokyo real estate trading picks up

Tokyo

LARGE-scale trading of real estate, mainly in central Tokyo, has been on the rise thanks to great demand for office space, backed by companies' earnings recovering.

In the first half of fiscal 2014 - from April to September - major real estate trades nationwide reached the second highest level after that of fiscal 2007, with fiscal 2000 being the year when comparable data became available. The previous record high was before the Lehman Brothers' 2008 shock. There have been a remarkable number of land trades by foreign buyers and investors, with amounts in some of the trades exceeding 100 billion yen (almost S$1.097 billion).