Browse > Home / Economic Reports, Real Estate / March new housing starts down 15.6% nationwide, 11.7% in Tokyo

March new housing starts down 15.6% nationwide, 11.7% in Tokyo

May 2, 2008
By Ken Worsley


Last week, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism released its figures for March housing starts. Last year, we saw a huge decline in the number of housing starts as new government regulations threw the industry into a state of limbo. From July to December, new housing starts fell by 23.4%, 43.3%, 44.0%, 35.0%, 27.0% and 19.2%.

At the start of 2008, conditions became a bit better, with new housing starts falling only 5.7% in January and 5.0% in February. In March, however, housing starts took a tumble once again, falling 15.6% to 83,991 new units.

Of these new units, 24,500 were single family dwellings, down 6.1% from a year before. 30,949 were rental housing, down 22.0% from March 2007, and 27,492 were multi-unit structures, down 18.0% from a year ago. In the Tokyo area, single family construction starts were down 4.7% in March, rentals down 15.1% and multi-unit structures down 13.6%.

For fiscal 2007, which ended March 31, housing starts fell 19.4% - the first drop seen in five years. Because last year’s figures for April, May and June were driven up by the expectation of tightened regulations, it looks like there are at least three months to go before we start seeing some growth in Japan’s housing starts, which will be made possible due to the excessively low level of starts seen from last summer.

Filed Under Economic Reports, Real Estate 

Social Bookmarks:
del.icio.us:March new housing starts down 15.6% nationwide, 11.7% in Tokyo digg:March new housing starts down 15.6% nationwide, 11.7% in Tokyo newsvine:March new housing starts down 15.6% nationwide, 11.7% in Tokyo furl:March new housing starts down 15.6% nationwide, 11.7% in Tokyo reddit:March new housing starts down 15.6% nationwide, 11.7% in Tokyo
Related Posts:
Japan housing starts down 20.7% in March, up 0.3% in FY2008
First quarter GDP growth at 0.9% - yet the word recession still finding its way into print
Japan’s Department Store Sales Down 1.5% in March
Industrial output down 1.6% in November; METI downgrades its assessment of Japan’s regional economies
Government sponsored mortgage discounts coming in 2010

Comments

One Response to “March new housing starts down 15.6% nationwide, 11.7% in Tokyo”

  1. First quarter GDP growth at 0.9% - yet the word recession still finding its way into print Japan Economy News & Blog - Business, Economy, Marketing and Economic Reports on May 17th, 2008 11:32 pm

    […] These figures came as somewhat of a surprise to most commentators, and we should not yet begin speculating on whether or not they might also be revised downwards in three months time. Where was the growth? The Cabinet Office announced that strong exports and a recovery in housing starts were chiefly behind the gain. Although housing starts are nowhere near the dismal levels they were at last summer and fall, it should be noted that they were down 5.7% in January, 5.0% in February and 15.6% in March. […]

Got something to say?