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The story
An article in which real estate consultant Tomohiro Makino argued that “Tokyo’s concentration of population won’t continue” became a hot topic on 5ch’s News Express+ board. Opinions were divided over the background to soaring condo prices in Tokyo’s 23 wards — whether Tokyo’s demand is “real,” the wage and job gap with regional cities, and how a major earthquake might affect prices.
With population decline and the falling birthrate and aging society posing major challenges for regional Japan, real estate consultant Tomohiro Makino points out that “Tokyo’s concentration won’t continue.” Behind this view lies the heavy housing-cost burden created by soaring condo prices in Tokyo, along with a renewed appreciation for the livability and regional value that provincial cities offer. We spoke with Makino about what’s really driving the surge in condo prices, why he believes Tokyo’s concentration won’t last, and what qualities make regional cities worth watching. (Part one of the series)
■ “Tokyo condo prices aren’t being driven by real demand”
Prices for used condos in Tokyo’s 23 wards continue to climb.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article
What people said
I asked it where the most livable place in Japan is and it said Shizuoka City, #1
Is it just currying favor with someone or what?
i.imgur.com/2mfGQn1.png
Just asked it again and now it says Fukuoka Prefecture
Seems like it changes its answer depending on who's asking
It told me Bunkyo Ward
Though I'm a Tokyo resident, I don't actually live in Bunkyo Ward
Runners-up were Fukuoka City, Fukui City, Nagakute (Aichi), Sendai, and Niigata City
Are they chasing some impossible dream?
Because it's easy to live alone here
You could always live in a neighboring prefecture just outside Tokyo too
Good pay out in the regions is only for a select few, isn't it?
Utility companies, regional banks, civil servants
Almost all of them graduated from one particular local school
And on top of that, those people's parents already had assets
People with nothing (i.e. most people) either put up with low wages or have no choice but to head to the city
Even here I can't help comparing my hometown to Shizuoka City
Even though its population is less than half my hometown's, the area around Shizuoka Station is way livelier. It's not just big shopping complexes — there's an old-fashioned shopping street too, and shops line the approach to the shrine
My hometown is a commuter town for Tokyo, so maybe it's because most residents spend their days and weekends in the city? Kind of makes me sad
honestly I think I'm more satisfied than I'd be if I'd bought a condo
These days, even in the regions, only certain spots are rising
The bubble was when even worthless land shot up in price
Tokyo has real demand behind it
The old bubble was centered on the three major metro areas
It burst right around when it started spreading out to the regions
(I recall that near the end, Himeji had the highest rate of price increase)
Well, I guess it's about time for this one to burst too
Tokyo isn't real demand — everywhere else just sank, so it only looks relatively concentrated here
Uh, wages are higher in Tokyo than in the regions though?
Places like Nagoya, Osaka, or Fukuoka aren't as expensive as Tokyo, and the wage level is decent too
Why are you so fixated on Tokyo?
Nagoya might be decently high because of Toyota, but
the rest aren't
It's just being dragged down by the crowd who moved to Tokyo thinking things would somehow work out once they got here
If you actually go about landing a proper job, the wage gap with other cities really does end up being quite large
Loan interest rates are rising, so it'll be tough in the regions too
I think we'll see more of a two-tier split
Yeah, that's the kind of article this is
"The population is shrinking, so condo prices will crash!"
"Vacant homes are exploding, so condo prices will crash!"
"COVID means remote work now, so condo prices will crash!"
The wishful thinking of 5ch's old-timers has been dead wrong every single time — it's honestly hilarious
So when exactly is this crash supposed to happen?
After the big earthquake hits directly under the capital
If anything, prices will go up even more after an earthquake
All the rickety old houses will collapse
and everyone will rush to condos
That'll be tough since property rights around there are all tangled up
I get it for low-rise condos, but
high-rises turn into hell if an earthquake knocks the power out
But aren't land prices and the cost of living way too high?
Ordinary people can't even afford a home in the city anymore
Couldn't you just buy in Saitama or Chiba?
It's not that different from Fukuoka
And yet you can earn wages there that you'd never get in Fukuoka
That's exactly why Tokyo's concentration makes sense
Should've just bought one already…
That's on you
People who fell for the "condo prices are gonna crash!" rumors and kept renting instead
have lost out on an insane scale
The cost of living in the city isn't actually dramatically high, you know
Even housing — if it's not a new-build condo — can be found for around 50 million yen depending on the area
What people online imagine as "Tokyo prices and housing costs" feels like it's really just talking about the central six wards
I idolized Yokohama myself
I was from the countryside, so yeah, I idolized it
I've actually been living in Tokyo a long time now and have no intention of moving back to the countryside
People say the mass media hypes up Tokyo, but online it's the exact opposite — everyone's dead set on trashing Tokyo at every turn
It's just that it's country folk venting their grudges on 5ch
The winners actually living it up in Tokyo aren't looking at a place like this, right?
That's only a recent thing — for a long time before that, the internet was busy mocking Osaka, or doing the whole "Saitama-!" and "Gunma-!" jokes (memes mocking those prefectures as backwater "foreign countries"), bashing the regions and glorifying Tokyo's concentration the entire time
Background and Key Points
Tokyo’s 23 wards are the core municipal units of the capital, and “central Tokyo” in this debate usually means an even smaller cluster — the handful of wards like Chiyoda, Minato, Shibuya, and Bunkyo where new condo prices have detached furthest from national averages. Real estate consultant Tomohiro Makino’s claim that “Tokyo’s concentration won’t continue” sits against Japan’s broader demographic crisis: a shrinking, aging population nationwide, but net in-migration to Tokyo that has persisted for decades, pulling young workers out of regional cities like Fukuoka, Sendai, and Niigata. The thread also invokes the late-1980s asset bubble, when land prices rose even in low-value rural areas before the whole market collapsed in the early 1990s — a historical trauma that shapes how Japanese posters instinctively read any sustained price rise as a bubble waiting to burst.
The actual fault line in the thread wasn’t whether prices are high, but whether the rise reflects genuine (“real”) demand for Tokyo specifically, or is simply the appearance of concentration because regional markets and wages sank around it — the exchange between posts 63 and 122 crystallizes this. A secondary split was over wages: some insisted Tokyo pay is categorically better, others countered that outside a narrow band of elite regional employers (utilities, banks, civil service), the real comparison is between Tokyo salaries and Saitama/Chiba living costs, not Tokyo prices versus Fukuoka.
What outside readers likely miss is that “Tokyo housing costs” as reported internationally almost always means this small central core, not the 23 wards as a whole, let alone the wider metropolitan area — a distinction one poster raised but that rarely survives translation into English-language coverage.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “‘Tokyo’s concentration won’t continue’ — Something odd about soaring condo prices in the city? An expert discusses the value of regional cities.”
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