Tokyo Used Condominium Prices Fell in August for the First Time in 28 Months
Resale condominium prices in Tokyo prefecture fell 0.2% in August, their first monthly decline in 28 months. The 23 central wards fell for a third month.
The price of a resale condominium in Tokyo prefecture, standardised to a 70 square metre unit, fell 0.2% in August to 112.74 million yen. It was the first monthly decline in 28 months, according to figures published on 24 September by Tokyo Kantei, which tracks the series. In the 23 central wards the fall was sharper at 0.4%, to 126.77 million yen, and it was the third consecutive monthly decline there.
The centre is falling while the ring is still rising
The wider Greater Tokyo area moved the other way, rising 0.8% to 76.06 million yen and extending a run of increases to 25 consecutive months. The three surrounding prefectures did the lifting. Chiba rose 2.3% to 30.58 million yen, Saitama 1.4% to 33.29 million yen and Kanagawa 0.7% to 44.00 million yen. A regional index that keeps climbing while its core falls is describing relocation, not weakness: the buyer priced out of the wards has not left the market, only the postcode.
Osaka is flat, Nagoya is not
In the Kinki region the index rose 0.4% to 36.40 million yen, a fifteenth consecutive monthly gain, but the two prefectures underneath it barely moved in the same direction. Osaka added 0.1% to 44.43 million yen and Hyogo slipped 0.1% to 26.47 million yen. The clearest momentum in the country was in the centre: the Chubu region rose 2.3% to 23.78 million yen, with Aichi up 1.5% to 24.77 million yen, the strongest pairing in the release outside Chiba.
Why a 0.2% fall is worth reading
On its own, a monthly move of two tenths of a percent is noise. What makes it worth reading is the 28 months on the other side of it, and the fact that the 23 wards have now fallen three months running. Tokyo prices are still 9.3% higher than a year ago on our own reading of the same series, so nothing in this release reverses the annual picture. It does, however, mark the point at which the most expensive part of the country stopped setting new monthly highs while everything around it continued to.
What the Tokyo numbers mean for a buyer
Our Tokyo row carries a price of 11,800.30 dollars per square metre, derived from the July print of this same 70 square metre series, against an asking rent of 33.48 dollars per square metre a month. That is a gross rental yield of 3.40%, or 3.17% after Japan's unusually light 6.72% standardised effective tax on non-resident rental income, against 24.35% in Germany and 27.5% in France. Over ten years Tokyo prices are up 73.2% and over five years 38.7%. On a valuation basis the city scores 72 out of 100, in the elevated band, where a higher number means a more stretched market. Transaction costs run to roughly 10.9%, and a foreign buyer acquires freehold title including the land beneath the building, with no nationality restriction.
Sources: Tokyo Kantei, monthly used-condominium price trend converted to 70 square metres, August 2026 data, published 24 September 2026 https://www.kantei.ne.jp/wp-content/uploads/c202608.pdf; Tokyo Kantei, market report listing https://www.kantei.ne.jp/report/