＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:https://skawa68.com/
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
Recently, the construction industry in Osaka has been in a favorable mood. Until recently, we often saw “earthquake-resistance reinforcement construction” and “exterior wall painting construction,” but just recently, there has been a construction boom for luxury hotels in the center of Osaka, and in cities near Osaka, there is a construction boom for one-room apartments.
1. Luxury hotel construction boom in central Osaka
One of the reasons for the construction boom of luxury hotels in central Osaka is the lifting of the “height restrictions” on Midosuji in Osaka.
Previously, the height of buildings along Midosuji was restricted to 50 meters as a rule, with a maximum of 60 meters. Now, however, a maximum of 200 meters is possible.
Since the land is “one square meter of soil and one square meter of gold（「土一升金（かね）一升」）,” the removal of height restrictions is very welcome for land-owning companies.
In addition, with the recent surge in “inbound” tourism, hotel demand is expected to be sufficient, and there seems to be a series of plans for the construction of luxury hotels.
The growing popularity of Universal Studios Japan and the fact that Kansai International Airport has become a hub for low-cost carriers are also contributing factors. It seems that the number of foreign tourists is expected to increase further with the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. With the number of foreign visitors to Japan exceeding 28 million in 2017, does this mean that the government’s plan to “increase the number of foreign visitors to Japan to 40 million in 2020” is not just a dream?
Four luxury hotels will be completed along Midosuji between 2019 and 2021: The Royal Park Hotel (116 meters high, 352 rooms, scheduled for completion in January 2020), Minami-Mido’s Temple Gate Integrated Hotel (tentative name: Osaka Excel Hotel Tokyu) (73 meters high, approximately 360 rooms, scheduled for completion in September 2019), The B Osaka Shinsaibashi (74 meters high, 309 rooms, scheduled for completion in February 2019), and the Marriott Group’s W Hotel (117 meters high, 337 rooms, scheduled for completion in February 2021).
The Hanshin Department Store building will also be completely rebuilt to become a department store and office complex (38 floors above ground, 189 meters high, scheduled for completion in March 2022).
Yodobashi Umeda Tower (tentative name) on the north side of Yodobashi Camera (149 meters high, scheduled for completion in December 2019) will house a hotel by Hankyu Hanshin Hotels, which will open in spring 2020 with approximately 1,000 guest rooms, making it one of the largest hotels in the Osaka Umeda area.
Existing large hotels have also been undergoing large-scale renovations one after another for the past few years, creating the appearance of a new “Osaka hotel war.”
As of the end of 2018, the number of hotel rooms in Osaka was approximately 57,000, and is expected to reach approximately 68,000 by 2020.
As a result, one think tank predicts that there will be approximately 4,700 surplus rooms. This will lead to fierce competition for customers.
However, food lovers are already looking forward to seeing what kind of restaurants will open in the new hotel.
I am a bit worried, even though it is not my concern, about how much the occupancy rate will drop after the inbound tourism boom has subsided…
2. A boom in the construction of studio apartments in and around Osaka
Recently, there seems to be a boom in the construction of studio apartments in the Osaka area. One method is for a studio apartment company to have a landowner build an entire building of studio apartments for rent, and then the company takes on the management and rent guarantee for all the rooms.
The other method is for a construction company to build a studio apartment and then sell each room to an investor.
In both cases, I believe there are many disadvantages. I think there are many risks such as “vacancy risk,” “rent decline risk,” “loss on sale risk,” and so on.
If the loan burden is added, the risk is even greater. You also need to be careful to make sure that the studio apartment is not an “illegal construction.
Looking around the studio apartments in my neighborhood, it is not unusual to see 100% occupancy rates when new apartments are built, as long as the rent is reasonable.
However, as new studio apartments are built one after another, tenants prefer to move into the newer apartments, so there are many vacant units.
Older condominiums also need to be repaired. It is safe to invest in a studio apartment only after careful consideration.
According to statistics from the Bank of Japan, real estate loans nationwide in 2016 exceeded 12 trillion yen, surpassing even the bubble period and reaching the highest level since 1977.
Apartment loans also reached 3.786 trillion yen, the highest level since statistics began in 2009. The number of new rental housing construction starts nationwide was just over 410,000, the highest level in eight years.
Regarding “construction loans for one-room apartments,” “regional banks” are actively engaged in this as a measure to avoid inheritance tax, and although it is not my concern, I am concerned that the heated lending competition at ultra-low interest rates will lead to a repeat of the “loose lending” of the past “bubble era,” and that a problem similar to the “Japanese version of subprime mortgages (the collapse of home loans to individuals with low credit ratings)” will occur.