In partnership with the laboratory of Professor Yukio Komatsu of the Department of Architecture at Waseda University,*1 Xymax Real Estate Institute (hereinafter, "Xymax REI") has conducted questionnaire surveys of owners of small and medium-sized buildings who leased out their buildings in Tokyo 23 Wards and Osaka city in 2017 and in Tokyo 23 Wards in 2015.*2
In this third survey, we conducted a questionnaire survey and interviews on the current state of the building lease business, its outlook, and its future direction with building owners in 19 government-designated cities excluding Osaka. This report is a summary of the results.
Hereinafter, this report will be referred to as "Government-designated Cities (2018)" and the survey in 2017 as "Tokyo & Osaka (2017)."
Age: More than 60% of the business managers are aged 60 or older; No. of properties owned: 70% of the building owners own one or two properties.
The current building lease business
To more than 80% of owners, the attractiveness of the building lease business is stable income.
Of the various measures in the building lease business, a large percentage of owners place importance on and implement "responding to tenants' requests" and "refurbishment or renovation of building." While they place importance on "preparing a medium- to long-term repair plan" and "renovating existing non-conforming buildings," not a lot of them implement them.
The future building lease business
Short-term (around three years) outlook: 40% are optimistic, exceeding pessimistic views of 17%. Medium- to long-term (five to ten years) outlook: 36% are pessimistic, exceeding optimistic views of 23%.
Interest in future changes in society: "Decreases in the population and the number of workers" accounted for 73%, far exceeding other items.
Building owners who are conscious of planned maintenance
Building owners with a medium- to long-term repair plan implement all measures such as "refurbishment or renovation of building" and "responding to tenants' requests" at a greater rate than building owners without a repair plan and are more optimistic about the outlook.
Efforts made in order to be chosen by tenants
Examples of efforts to overcome challenges and concerns in the future building business were obtained from the interviews.
