An economic rebound and loose money policy under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe briefly halted a long slide in Japan's commercial property market, but the benefits of "Abenomics" appear increasingly limited to Tokyo, leaving a moribund hinterland.
For a while, as the Bank of Japan printed money and Abe spent it, commercial property investment, a barometer of economic activity, spilled beyond the capital into the country's larger regional cities.
In the year to July 1, commercial land prices rose 1.9 percent in Tokyo, and 1.5 percent in Osaka and Nagoya, notching up a second year of gains.