Real Estate Price Index

What "Japan property prices" actually measures

The official statistic that reduces Japanese property prices to a single number is the Real Estate Price Index, published by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. It is built from roughly 300,000 transaction prices a year, indexed so that the 2010 average equals 100, and published monthly. This page gives the latest published figures as they stand, and explains what each one does and does not tell you.[1]

145.1+5.3%Residential, all types, December 2025, 2010 = 100

Important: the index is currently postponed

On 27 August 2026 the ministry gave notice that the release scheduled for 31 August 2026 was postponed because of a defect in the calculation program, and that releases scheduled from April 2026 onward were postponed for the same reason. No new publication date has been announced.[1]

That means the newest official figures available anywhere are from the 31 March 2026 release: December 2025 for residential property and Q4 2025 for commercial property. If you find a source quoting a more recent Real Estate Price Index reading, check where it came from.

Residential index, nationwide (December 2025)

Residential property is published as four separate series. Reading only the headline number will mislead you about what is happening.

Residential index, nationwide (December 2025)
SeriesIndexYear on year
Residential, all types[2]145.1+5.3%
Residential land118.3+1.9%
Detached houses120.5+3.0%
Condominiums221.2+8.4%

Every index level on this page uses 2010 average = 100, and is the original series, not seasonally adjusted.

What is rising is condominiums, not housing

On a 2010 = 100 base, condominiums stood at 221.2 in December 2025 while residential land stood at 118.3. Over the same fifteen years condominiums more than doubled and land rose by less than a fifth. Detached houses, at 120.5, track land far more closely than they track condos. Most of what gets said about Japanese property going up is a statement about condominiums.[2]

The series since 2009

10012014016018020020092013201720212025
  • Condominiums
  • Residential, all types
  • Detached houses
  • Residential land
Vertical axis is the index level (2010 average = 100). Annual averages of the published monthly index. The series begins in April 2008, so the chart starts at 2009, the first year with all twelve months.[2]

Commercial property index, nationwide (Q4 2025)

Commercial property is published quarterly, and it is moving distinctly differently from housing.

Commercial property index, nationwide (Q4 2025)
SeriesIndexYear on year
Commercial property, all types[3]145.8+1.0%
Apartment blocks (whole building)174.4+4.8%
Offices169.5-6.3%
Retail159.2+0.4%
Commercial land111.9-3.6%

Commercial property overall rose just 1.0% year on year, but the components have split apart. Whole apartment blocks are up 4.8%, while offices are down 6.3% and commercial land is down 3.6%. The strength in housing does not carry over to commercial assets.[3]

Residential index by area (December 2025)

Tokyo, Aichi and Osaka are published as individual prefectures. Everywhere else is published as a regional block, so the rows are not the same unit.

Residential index by area (December 2025)
AreaResidentialYear on yearLandHousesCondos
TokyoPrefecture179.9+8.1%144.3133.6230.9
OsakaPrefecture157.4+8.3%132.0123.4231.6
AichiPrefecture123.7+1.9%105.0114.3191.8
HokkaidoRegional block168.5+18.4%145.0137.0288.1
TohokuRegional block137.2+7.5%119.9124.1263.5
KantoRegional block153.8+5.8%124.7123.5215.8
ChubuRegional block111.7+1.3%96.7103.0199.4
KinkiRegional block148.5+7.1%117.3125.9224.6
ChugokuRegional block117.3+0.3%103.2104.9235.3
ShikokuRegional block110.3-6.5%106.097.4203.6
Kyushu and OkinawaRegional block150.7+8.6%127.0121.8271.4

The largest year-on-year rise is Hokkaido at 18.4%, whose condominium index of 288.1 is the highest of any area in Japan. Shikoku moved the other way at -6.5%, the only area clearly falling. A single national number hides that entire spread.[2]

How to read the index, and where it stops

It is not an average price

The index measures change, not level. A reading of 145.1 means transactions are running 45% above the 2010 average, not that the average property costs a particular number of yen. For actual prices you need transactions in the area you care about.

This is the original series, so months are noisy

The figures here are not seasonally adjusted. Judge direction from the year-on-year change and from multi-year trend, not from a single month. The ministry publishes a seasonally adjusted series in the same workbook.

It is a different statistic from the land price publication

The land price publication released each March is an appraised value for standard survey points. This index is built from prices at which transactions actually closed. They have different purposes and different update cycles, so neither substitutes for the other.

It does not transfer to an individual property

National and regional indices are averages over wide areas. Road frontage, zoning and whether a plot can be rebuilt on move prices sharply even within one municipality. A purchase decision needs research on the specific parcel.

Sources

Every figure on this page was read directly from the primary documents below. No secondary summaries were used.

  1. [1]Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. Real Estate Price IndexThe index hub page. Carries the publication notice and links every data file, including the two below.
  2. [2]Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. Real Estate Price Index (residential), monthly series workbookExcel workbook, released 31 March 2026. Every residential figure on this page is a cell in this file. Monthly series, original (not seasonally adjusted), running to December 2025.
  3. [3]Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. Real Estate Price Index (commercial property), quarterly series workbookExcel workbook. The commercial figures on this page are cells in this file. Quarterly series, original, running to Q4 2025.

Sources last verified: 2026-09-13

Commercial figures are as of Q4 2025.