In mid-February, property portal Kenbiya analyzed rental yields for strata-title condos, wood-frame whole buildings, and reinforced concrete whole buildings in Japan’s designated cities, based on properties advertised on the portal from July to December 2024.
Kenbiya is a property portal focusing on income-earning properties including in the residential sectors. Their data comes from subscribing agents who upload on-market listings for sale to the portal and is released bi-annually.
Kenbiya also only looked at cities labelled as Government Ordinance Cities (a.k.a. Designated Cities) which are, according to Wikipedia, “... is a Japanese city that has a population greater than 500,000 and has been designated as such by order of the Cabinet of Japan under Article 252, Section 19, of the Local Autonomy Law.”
Tokyo’s 23 wards are not a part of this designation system.
2024 2H Average Yield Rankings
Chart courtesy of Kenbiya, translated by Patience Realty.
Niigata City Claims Triple Crown
Niigata City, which previously topped the reinforced concrete whole building category, has now secured the highest rental yields across all three property types.
Shizuoka City, which led the strata-title condo category in the last survey, dropped to third place.
Niigata retained its dominance, ranking first for wood-frame whole buildings for the 12th consecutive period measured since the first half of 2019 and first for reinforced concrete whole buildings for the fifth straight period.
Kita-Kyushu climbed to second place in both strata-title condos and wood-frame whole buildings, improving from third place in the previous survey.
Among the 20 cities analyzed, rental yields rose in five cities for strata-title condos and nine cities each for wood-frame and reinforced concrete whole buildings.
Only four cities—Sendai, Niigata, Sakai, and Kitakyushu—saw rental yields increase across all three property types.
Biggest Ranking Shifts
Osaka saw the sharpest decline in wood-frame whole buildings, tumbling from 12th to 17th place.
Sendai staged a strong comeback in the reinforced concrete whole building category, leaping from 17th to 6th place after ranking 9th two cycles ago.
Strata-title condo rankings remained stable, with no major shifts of three places or more.
Source:
Kenbiya (Japanese only)
