The land, infrastructure and transport ministry has found that as of July 1, the nationwide average residential land prices went down 3.2 percent from a year before — the 20th straight annual drop — and average prices for commercial areas fell 4 percent — the fourth straight decrease. The trend points to the effects of deflation, although the rate of decrease in land prices in the Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya areas narrowed. The effects of the March 11 quake and tsunami were also large.

The ministry said that the disasters' effects offset the effects of tax reduction measures for households paying housing loans. It also said that high vacancy rates in office buildings and postdisaster decreases in sales at shops caused land prices to fall.

The effects of the disasters and the nuclear crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant are clear in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures. The land price surveys had to be given up at 93 points in these disaster-hit prefectures, 50 of them inside evacuation zones in Fukushima Prefecture set up after the nuclear accidents.