Japanese Land Prices Rise for 5th Year

For anyone considering a holiday home or investment flat in Japan—or simply wondering whether prices still hold—there is a directional answer today: Japan's latest prefectural land-price survey shows the national average up 1.5% from a year earlier, the fifth straight annual rise, with both residential and commercial land in solid demand. Five consecutive years of gains signals a trend, not a one-off rebound—a sign the market still has real demand underneath it, even as entry gets pricier.

Two forces hold land prices up. One is domestic housing demand—people still need to live and buy, tracking population, jobs and household formation. The other is inbound tourism: resort areas such as Hakuba in Nagano are lifted by rising visitor numbers, an overflow of overseas capital and lodging investment. The two differ in nature, and knowing which one supports your plot matters.

For Taiwanese readers, two angles: if you want a live-in holiday property, resort land is getting pricier the longer you wait, but resale and rental demand hold; if you want pure investment, distinguish residential land (steady, modest gains) from resort land (higher beta, more exposed to the economy and the yen).

One variable must be read alongside prices: rates. The same day, Japan's long-term yield hit a roughly 30-year high. Demand and tourism push land up; costlier mortgages pull from the buyer side, capping what buyers can pay. Watch whether inbound momentum holds, and whether rising rates start to cap prices in the years ahead.