Japan housing market 2026: prices, costs, FSBO

The freshest read on Japan's market flags a turn. The average contract price for an existing condominium in Greater Tokyo was 50.67 million JPY (5,067 万円) in May 2026, down 4.6 percent from a year earlier. That is the first year-on-year decline in 19 months. The per-square-meter contract price slipped 3.9 percent to 808,000 JPY/m2, its first annual drop in 73 months, going back to April 2020. When the per-square-meter figure rolls over after six years of gains, it is worth paying attention.

Our own read of live listings matches a softening, still-firm picture. Across 27 used 2-3LDK family apartments we sampled on a major portal on June 23, the median asking price was 30 million JPY (3,000 万円). City medians ran roughly 32.0M JPY in Tokyo's Setagaya ward, 30.0M JPY in central Osaka's Yodogawa ward, and 12.2M JPY in Nagoya's Nakagawa ward. Asking prices sit above transacted prices, as they always do, so treat these as the top of the negotiating range, not the clearing price.

Rolling the May contract figure forward one month by the recent monthly pace, our nowcast for a Greater Tokyo used condominium in June 2026 lands at roughly 48 to 50 million JPY. One caveat keeps this honest: the official annual indices and the latest monthly transaction data disagree on direction right now. The MLIT land-price survey published in March still showed residential land up 2.1 percent nationwide for 2026, with Tokyo's 23 wards up 9.0 percent (Tokyo prefecture overall up 6.5 percent), while the monthly transaction data has just started to soften. Annual indices lag. The monthly turn is the newer signal.

The largest selling cost in Japan is the brokerage commission, and it is capped by law. For a sale over 4 million JPY, an agent's fee is limited to 3 percent of the price plus 60,000 JPY plus consumption tax, which works out to about 3.3 to 3.5 percent all-in. On a 40 million JPY sale that is roughly 1,386,000 JPY for one side.

Here is the part that surprises sellers coming from the US. In Japan the buyer and the seller each typically have their own agent, and each side customarily pays its own commission, each up to that same statutory cap. The exception is the so-called 両手 (ryote) deal, where a single firm represents both parties and collects a fee from each. The practical takeaway is that your commission exposure as a seller is one side, not two.

Beyond commission, the costs are small. Stamp duty on the sale contract runs from a few thousand JPY up to tens of thousands depending on the price band, and a judicial scrivener typically charges tens of thousands of JPY to clear an existing mortgage from the title. The bigger variable is tax on any profit: capital-gains tax is 20.315 percent if you have owned the home more than five years, or 39.63 percent if five years or less, usually after a 30 million JPY deduction for a primary residence. Selling your own home as an individual is exempt from consumption tax.

Selling without an agent is fully legal in Japan. No law requires a licensed broker (宅地建物取引業者) for an individual selling their own home, and owner-direct sales (個人間売買) do happen, most often between relatives or acquaintances who already have a buyer lined up.

In practice, though, it is uncommon, and the reason is structural rather than legal. The market runs on REINS, the inter-agency listing network that private sellers cannot post to directly. The mainstream consumer portals carry almost entirely brokerage listings rather than by-owner ads. A handful of no-commission owner-to-owner services exist, but they are niche, so most owner-sellers still engage at least a buyer-side agent to handle the contract, financing checks, and title transfer.

The honest framing is this: a private sale in Japan saves your own side of the commission, up to about 1,386,000 JPY on a 40 million JPY home, not both sides, because the buyer's side was never yours to pay. The work you take on is real, including pricing against comparable sales, finding a buyer without REINS exposure, and getting the contract and registration right. If you already have a buyer, the savings are clean. If you do not, the exposure problem is the hard part.