Following the first survey in 2015, Xymax Real Estate Institute (hereinafter, Xymax REI) conducted a questionnaire survey of owners of small and medium-sized buildings in partnership with the laboratory of Professor Yukio Komatsu of the Department of Architecture at Waseda University.*1*2
In this second survey, we expanded the coverage from central Tokyo to include Osaka city and conducted questionnaire surveys and interviews on the current state of the building lease business, outlook, and intentions to continue the business. This report is a summary of the results.
Age: Aged 60 or older among more than 60% of building owners; No. of properties owned: One or two properties among approximately 70% of building owners.
Share of the building lease business: More than 70% of total sales among around half of building owners; Experience of business: More than 30 years among 60% of building owners.
The current building lease business
Nearly 90% of business operators place importance on "responding to tenants' requests," "preparing medium and long-term repair plan," and "refurbishment or renovation of building," with a large percentage of them implementing such actions.
On the other hand, although operators consider "repairing existing non-conforming buildings" and "antiseismic measures" to be important, not a lot of them have carried them out.
The future building lease business
Short-term (around three years) outlook: Optimistic views were 43%, exceeding pessimistic views (15%). Medium- to long-term (five to ten years) outlook: 38% were pessimistic, exceeding optimism (18%).
Owners in Tokyo were more optimistic both short-term and medium/long-term than those in Osaka, and had fewer pessimistic views.
Top concerns in the future building lease business: Matters related to "income/expenditure," followed by matters concerning "management" and "operation."
Challenges and hopes for the building lease business
Challenges in owning buildings: "Tax burden," "difficulty in addressing environmental changes (surrounding/social needs)," "difficulty in utilizing subsidies"
Challenges in rebuilding the building: Lack of economic benefit, such as "the building size remains the same or becomes smaller due to the floor-area ratio," "time and cost for relocating tenants will be large and cannot be foreseen."
Hopes: "Alleviation of tax burden," "support measures for rebuilding or large-scale renovations"
