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Japan Times
BUSINESS / FOCUS
Aug 27, 2022

China’s bad debt funds are no white knights in property crisis

Aggressive lending to embattled developers has beset the $730 billion funds with heavy credit losses, forcing Beijing to weigh a preliminary plan to restructure the sector.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 25, 2022

China on alert for Evergrande restructuring plan after shakeup

The company rocked markets late last year when it defaulted on dollar-bond payments after liquidity scares that began in 2020.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 5, 2022

London’s billionaire playground challenged by war’s reality

Putin's invasion of Ukraine, and the subsequent targeting of Russia's overseas money, threatens to end the British capital's near 50-year run as the plutocrat's playground of choice.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 12, 2022

World’s worst-performing bank lent billions to China Evergrande

Battered by mounting losses on loans to developers including China Evergrande Group, China Minsheng Banking Corp. saw their stocks tumble 31% in the 12 months through last week.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 29, 2021

Even in tech hub Shenzhen, China's property market succumbs to chills

The lack of turnover in the property market and the fallout on the city's real estate brokers stems in part from policy efforts by local authorities to make apartment prices more affordable.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 11, 2021

How Evergrande's rags-to-riches founder is trying to save his empire

Evergrande chairman Hui Ka Yan's fortune is plunging and his sprawling real estate empire is on the verge of collapse.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 4, 2021

China steps up efforts to ring-fence Evergrande, not save it

In the last week alone, Chinese authorities have dispatched top financial regulators to nudge the country's massive banks to ease credit for homebuyers and support the property sector.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal / Regional Voices: Okinawa
Jun 14, 2021

Okinawa activists fear land-purchase bill will hit anti-base movement

Residents are asking the government to provide an explanation as to why the legislation is necessary.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 11, 2020

Empty offices growing in Tokyo as virus gives tenants pause

Vacancies in five major business districts rose to 1.97 percent in May, the largest monthly gain in over a decade.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Okinawa
Apr 21, 2019

Worker influx ignites resort island rent bubble on Miyakojima

An influx of construction workers to meet the demands of the tourism boom on the Okinawan resort island of Miyakojima is creating severe apartment shortages, sending rents higher.
Feb 5, 2019

ORIX Real Estate Establishes a New Inn and Hotel Operating Business Brand: ORIX HOTELS & RESORTS

TOKYO, Japan – January 31, 2019 – ORIX Real Estate Corporation (“ORIX Real Estate”) announced that it has established ORIX HOTELS & RESORTS (“OHR”) as a new onsen hotel and hotel operating business brand. The new brand will subdivide 13 of the facilities that ORIX Real Estate operates in...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 27, 2017

Tokyo's Kabutocho financial district gets creative in bid to revive its quiet streets

It's a Monday night in late November and Ryutei Ichiya, a kimono-clad 34-year-old rakugo comic raconteur, is performing a skit in front of a crowd of over 100.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 11, 2017

SoftBank's Son cedes to Murdoch as top India home, property portals merge

Indian real estate websites PropTiger.com and Housing.com are merging to create the country's top portal for residential listings and property services, as Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. boosts its investment in the growing sector while Masayoshi Son's SoftBank Group Corp. scales back.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / HOME TRUTHS
Oct 1, 2016

Tokyo faces declining condominium prices

In Japan's housing market, there has always been one verity: Certain parts of Tokyo will always be popular and, therefore, profitable for developers. However, according to various media reports, that verity may have collapsed, at least when it comes to new condominiums.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
May 28, 2014

Mitsui Fudosan plans big share issue on Olympics

Mitsui Fudosan Co. plans to raise as much as ¥324.6 billion in the biggest share sale by a property company in Japan in at least four decades.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 14, 2006

Taking the real estate industry to new levels

No need to feel sorry for E. Takashi Norris, working all alone at his desk in Azabudai. Because it's good news -- including having a very nice office all to himself. "All my staff are out on business," he explains. "Even the young woman I took on initially as my assistant is now operating her own right,...
BUSINESS
Aug 4, 2006

Gap in real estate prices between big, small cities continues to widen

The gap in land prices between large and small cities continues to widen even though the average price in select areas has moved higher for the first time in 14 years.
BUSINESS
May 19, 2000

Firms agree to tie up on real estate

The planned Mizuho Financial Group will team up with real estate giant Mitsui Fudosan Co. in securitizing their real estate holdings, officials close to the deal said Thursday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 21, 2021

The 'metaverse' bet: Crypto-rich investors snap up virtual real estate

A new economy of blockchain-based virtual worlds is arising where land, buildings, avatars and even names can be bought and sold as nonfungible tokens.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 3, 2022

Sweeping mortgage boycott changes the face of dissent in China

While real estate has been the most common cause of protests in recent years, a coordinated boycott of this scale has never happened before in China.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 25, 2022

Apartment prices in Tokyo exceed bubble-era high to hit record

Rising demand from dual-income households and increasing construction costs are boosting the capital's once-moribund housing market.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 10, 2021

Investors await Evergrande's overdue $148 million payment as debt woes grow

Despite Evergrande's debt woes, its electric vehicles unit is planning to push ahead with its plan to sell shares to fund production of new energy cars.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 22, 2024

Seibu may sell 36-story Tokyo office building for ¥300 billion, sources say

Japan's highest value property transaction is currently the ¥436 billion sale by the government in 2022 of its stake in another Tokyo office building.
Gaza’s reconstruction is needed, but U.S. President Donald Trump’s approach — framing it as a business deal without addressing Palestinian political aspirations — makes little sense as foreign policy.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 6, 2025

Trump’s ‘Gaza Riviera’ scheme may be more than a fantasy

It’s tempting to dismiss Donald Trump’s bid to take over Gaza as just another wild proposal, designed more to change the conversation and wrong-foot negotiating partners than as policy.
Sumitomo Realty has earmarked 19 midsize office buildings in Tokyo for divestment, sources said.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 13, 2025

Sumitomo Realty seeks office sale after Elliott takes stake

The developer has earmarked 19 midsize office buildings for the divestment.
An undated photo supplied by a resident of an apartment complex in Tokyo's Itabashi Ward shows people who appear to be staff members offering illegal private lodging services. Their faces are blurred for privacy reasons.
JAPAN
Jun 25, 2025

Around 250 takedown requests made in fiscal 2024 over illegal private lodgings

Operators of private lodgings must notify prefectural governments of their businesses, ensure sanitary conditions and handle complaints.
Residential buildings under construction at Tahoe Group's Cathay Courtyard development in Shanghai
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 17, 2023

China’s housing slump is much worse than official data shows

Industry insiders and economists say China’s official home-price indexes are likely understating the depth of the downturn.
A 40-year-old house in the city of Fukuoka that has been renovated by Katitas, a company that buys up secondhand houses for resale. The company retained the house's original wooden ceilings and window frames to preserve the property's vintage look.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Kyushu
Dec 9, 2024

As demand rises for abandoned houses, so do cases of hidden defects

Industry experts recommend prospective buyers conduct thorough inspections before concluding transactions for akiya.
A construction crane beyond an apartment building at dusk in the Prenzlauer Berg district in Berlin, in February.
BUSINESS / Economy
Nov 3, 2023

Europe’s great housing crisis is only getting started

With housing already tight, the situation threatens to weigh on growth and further stoke political tensions as shortages squeeze more and more voters.
The Bank of Japan headquarters in Tokyo. The central bank has yet to step into the real estate investment trusts market this year, after purchases every year since 2010 to help lower risks in the property market.
BUSINESS
Nov 22, 2023

BOJ pulls back from risk asset buying in sign of normalization

The lack of buying comes amid simmering speculation that the Bank of Japan will scrap its negative interest rate and control of government bond yields.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past