Japanese RE values fell for 15 years then hit a bottom and just seemed as if they were on their way to recovery when you get this:
“Nationwide land prices in Japan fell an average 3.5 percent in 2008, compared with a 1.7 percent rise in 2007.
Prices had been rising for two years after 15 straight years of decline as the country grappled with the aftermath of the bursting of an asset bubble in the early 1990s.”
To Californians this is inconceivable: Housing falling off a cliff in a grueling 15 year descent to a dismal bottom, and then tiny glimmers of hope for 2 years and back to the slide down.
By 2002 Japan’s RE values had fallen to 1970s levels!
“TOKYO — Japanese land prices declined for a 12th straight year in 2002, sending the average price of commercial real estate back down near levels of the late 1970s, the government said Monday.
Commercial land prices across Japan plunged an average 8.0 percent last year from the year earlier, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport said in its annual land price report. Residential real estate prices tumbled an average of 5.8 percent.
Japanese real estate has suffered since land and stock prices started sinking in the early 1990s and took the economy into a prolonged slump.
Years of stimulus spending have been unable to get the the country growing again, as manufacturers face … “
Do you suppose 1990 bubble prices in Japan are still considered the “regular price” or the point at which discounts begin?
Today, would a Japanese buyer be tempted by a realtor stating the house was 50% off what it sold for in 1990? Or would that 1990 number be considered an absurd anomaly today?
