Akiko Takahashi / Chief Strategy Officer
Perspectives from a life in leadership.
The latest essay
Japan's housing industry still speaks of rebuilding its ageing condominiums as if surplus floor area will pay for it. For most buildings it will not, and the sooner developers, owners and municipalities plan for long-term renewal instead, the fewer buildings will be left to decay.
Read the essayJapan's housing industry still speaks of rebuilding its ageing condominiums as if surplus floor area will pay for it. For most buildings it will not, and the sooner developers, owners and municipalities plan for long-term renewal instead, the fewer buildings will be left to decay.
When a Japanese town loses households, developers often cut prices to keep selling new homes on its edge, spreading a smaller population across more land. The better response is to stop selling at the edge and invest where a town can still hold together.
Japanese developers still plan around their land banks, but the scarcer resource is now a contractor willing to build at a workable price. A developer that secures construction capacity first, and buys only the land it can build on, will launch fewer homes and lose fewer years.