Tokyo
2 homes
Tokyo
The world's largest city, lived at street level: quiet residential pockets like Daikanyama and Ebisu sit minutes from Shibuya yet feel like small towns, with low-rise shops, parks and a level of daily service that is hard to find anywhere else.
Life here
- Walkable neighbourhoods
- Food and design culture
- Rail to everywhere
- Year-round city life
Ownership rationale
Freehold is normal, foreign buyers face no restrictions, and well-managed buildings in the inner wards hold value. Land in the best pockets is fixed, so location and building management matter far more than age.
Getting here
Haneda around 30 minutes and Narita around an hour from the inner wards; Shinkansen to the mountains and Kyoto.
The market, honestly
Published data where it exists — sources belowPrice per square metre
¥2.12M / m² average in Shibuya-ku (approx. €12,500 / m²)
Shibuya-ku used apartments transacted at an average of ¥2,120,000/m² in early 2026, with an average sale price of ¥114.6M — roughly double the 23-ward average. Median contract pricing for the ward is ¥5.73M per tsubo (about ¥1.73M/m²). Daikanyama and Ebisu sit above the ward average again; large, well-managed buildings near the station are the tightest part of that market.
Last three years
+6.7% in the last year in Shibuya-ku
Median contract price per tsubo in Shibuya-ku rose 6.7% year on year to August 2026, on 501 recorded transactions. Central Tokyo resale has risen every year since 2013; the pace is set by land, not by the buildings, so older well-located stock has tracked the market rather than lagged it.
Rental return
3 – 4% gross on a long let (our estimate)
Not a published figure. Central Tokyo is a long-let market: a two-bedroom of this quality near Daikanyama station lets in the ¥350,000–450,000 per month range. Nightly letting requires a minpaku registration and is capped at 180 nights a year nationally, with building rules often prohibiting it outright.
Holding and resale
¥500,000 – ¥900,000 a year including management, sinking fund and tax (our estimate)
Typical annual running costs including taxes, utilities and basic maintenance. Among the most liquid residential markets in the world; good inner-ward stock sells in weeks.
Who this suits
- Buyers who want a city base used across the year rather than a seasonal home
- Owners comfortable with apartment life and a managed building
- Anyone pairing a Tokyo base with a mountain house in Nagano or Niigata
Price levels and recent movement come from the published sources listed below, read in 2026. Rental returns, running costs and liquidity are our own working estimates and are labelled as such. None of this is a valuation — any specific home we bring you is underwritten on its own numbers.
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