While in Japan, I met with Toyokazu (Kazu) Imazeki, who I recognized immediately from the most recent meeting of the American Real Estate Society in Hawai’i back in April. It turns out he is a Ph.D. graduate of Georgia State University’s real estate program and then moved back to Japan. [I took some classes at Georgia State as part of my doctoral program at Georgia Tech. And interestingly, Georgia State University started out as the business school for Georgia Tech.]

Kazu’s firm, Sanko Estate, provides office leasing, due diligence, and consulting services. Kazu is in the research department of Sanko Estate, where data research and analysis occurs. He and his team provide office market data (office rents, vacancy rates, trends, and information on large-scale development projects) for Tokyo as well as other metropolitan areas in Japan. An Office Rent Index, which is based on the contracted rent data collected by Sanko Estate, is produced quarterly and is segmented by building size. Class A office vacancy rates in Tokyo were approximately 8% in 2013-Q1 and have dropped to 7.6% as of 2013-Q2.

One interesting tidbit I learned from Kazu is that there is no title insurance in Japan because the government guarantees ownership. This is a marked difference from the United States, where title insurance is a standard part of the property purchase process.

Photo of CDS Tokyo office courtesy of BAKOKO.

– Clifford Lipscomb