Onigiri · No. 4
Bite-size Japan real estate
Inside the capital, the priciest ward costs 3.3× the cheapest — and they're all "Tokyo."
Morning. "I bought in Tokyo" can mean a ¥2M-a-meter trophy in the embassy district — or a flat out east for a third of that. Same city, very different bill. Let's snack.
A used condo in Minato — Tokyo's priciest ward — runs about ¥1.96M per square meter. The same square meter in Adachi, the cheapest of the 23, costs about ¥600k — roughly 3.3× less. Both addresses say "Tokyo." They are not the same purchase.
The takeaway: the ward you pick swings the price 3.3× before you've seen a single floor plan.
The top of the table is Tokyo's finance-and-embassy core: Minato, Chiyoda, Chuo, Shibuya — every one north of ¥1.56M a meter. This is the Tokyo of glossy listings: Roppongi, Ginza, the towers with concierges.
The takeaway: the famous wards are famous for a reason — and they charge for it.
Flip to the other end and "Tokyo" gets surprisingly reachable. The eastern wards — Edogawa, Katsushika, Adachi — sit around ¥667k–¥600k a meter, a third of the trophy districts but still inside the same 23 wards, on the same trains.
The takeaway: you can absolutely buy "in Tokyo" without buying a Minato price tag.
By the numbers
Sources: MLIT transaction-price records (不動産取引価格情報). Figures are 2025 median ¥/m² for used condos (中古マンション等) by Tokyo special ward, minimum 80 sales per ward; latest year preliminary.
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