The answer in the data
The completed-sale price per square metre for a used condominium in the greater Tokyo region rose from JPY 551,700 in 2020 to JPY 829,800 in 2025, an increase of 50.4%. The average completed price rose from JPY 35.99 million to JPY 52.00 million, or 44.5%. Those figures describe a powerful six-year repricing, but they do not mean that the same apartment became 50% more valuable or that every part of Tokyo moved together.
The property being transacted also changed. Average completed unit size fell from 65.24 m² to 62.66 m², while average age increased from 21.99 to 26.58 years. In other words, the market-level price rose even as the average completed unit became about 4% smaller and 4.6 years older. A buyer comparing today's budget with a 2020 budget is therefore not simply paying more for an identical basket. The basket itself has shifted.
The latest completed quarter adds a second distinction. In April–June 2026, the completed price per square metre was JPY 831,300, almost unchanged from the same quarter a year earlier, while completed volume fell 2.0% and inventory increased 3.5%. New-registration and inventory price levels were much higher than completed-sale levels, but those are different groups of properties. They cannot be converted into a 30% or 40% “negotiation discount.”
This report reconstructs the series from East Japan REINS annual reports for 2020–2025 and the quarterly report for April–June 2026. Data are current through 30 June 2026. The geography is the REINS metropolitan region—Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba—not Tokyo's 23 wards alone.
Six completed years in one table
The table uses completed-sale observations for the used-condominium segment. Prices are nominal yen and are not adjusted for inflation, financing costs, tax or currency movement.
| Year | Completed sales | Price per m² | Average price | Average area | Average age |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 35,825 | JPY 551,700 | JPY 35.99m | 65.24 m² | 21.99 years |
| 2021 | 39,812 | JPY 598,100 | JPY 38.69m | 64.68 m² | 22.67 years |
| 2022 | 35,429 | JPY 672,400 | JPY 42.76m | 63.59 m² | 23.33 years |
| 2023 | 35,987 | JPY 719,000 | JPY 45.75m | 63.63 m² | 23.83 years |
| 2024 | 37,222 | JPY 768,800 | JPY 48.90m | 63.60 m² | 24.53 years |
| 2025 | 49,114* | JPY 829,800 | JPY 52.00m | 62.66 m² | 26.58 years |
*East Japan REINS warns that a January 2025 system change intended to improve completed-transaction registration may have affected the completed-sales count. The 31.9% reported increase in 2025 is therefore not clean evidence that physical market turnover rose by the same percentage.
The price series is more continuous than the volume series, but even it is an average of changing transactions. It reflects geography, building, age, area, floor, condition and other mix. It is evidence of the direction and scale of market repricing; it is not an index for automatically marking a subject apartment up by 50.4%.
2020 did not produce an annual price collapse
The 2020 annual result is useful because it separates transaction interruption from price outcome. Completed sales fell 6.0% to 35,825, and new registrations fell 11.3% to 181,750. Yet the completed price per square metre increased 3.2% and the average completed price increased 4.6%.
This does not prove that the pandemic caused prices to rise. It shows that fewer transactions and fewer new registrations can coexist with a higher average completed price. The result may reflect composition, seller behaviour, financing conditions, household decisions and where transactions still occurred. A market article that says simply “demand fell” or “Tokyo property was resilient” discards the mechanism the reader needs.
For a buyer, the practical lesson is that transaction counts and prices answer different questions. Lower turnover can mean fewer forced sellers, fewer available choices, or a shift toward transactions that were still financeable and desirable. To understand bargaining conditions, the buyer also needs inventory, listing duration, comparable condition and the gap between the subject's price and actual peer transactions.
2021 and 2022 established the price-volume split
In 2021, completed sales recovered 11.1% to 39,812 and exceeded the 2019 count. The completed price per square metre rose 8.4% to JPY 598,100, while the average completed price rose 7.5% to JPY 38.69 million. Average area contracted and average age increased.
The 2022 result is more revealing. Completed volume dropped 11.0% to 35,429, but price per square metre increased 12.4% to JPY 672,400 and average price increased 10.5% to JPY 42.76 million. A weak volume year was therefore the strongest annual price-per-square-metre increase in this six-year table.
That divergence matters when interpreting headlines. A fall in completed sales does not automatically imply a fall in price. It may signal affordability pressure, insufficient acceptable supply, reluctance to sell, or a changing transaction mix. Establishing which explanation dominates requires smaller geographic and property-type cuts. The regional average alone cannot determine causality.
There is also a break in the new-registration series. From 2022, East Japan REINS changed the counting scope to exclude brokerage-contract renewals and extensions of registration periods. New-registration totals before and after that change should not be presented as one seamless supply series.
2023 and 2024 extended the repricing into an older stock base
Completed volume stabilised in 2023 and 2024: 35,987 sales in 2023 and 37,222 in 2024. Price per square metre nevertheless rose 6.9% in each year, reaching JPY 768,800 in 2024. Average completed price reached JPY 48.90 million.
At the same time, the average age of a completed unit increased from 23.33 years in 2022 to 24.53 years in 2024. The average age of a newly registered unit passed 30 years in 2024. This is not automatically negative. Older buildings can occupy excellent sites, have large units or have completed major repairs. But an older transaction base increases the importance of building-level analysis: association finances, long-term repair plans, façade and waterproofing work, pipes, lifts, seismic evidence and the rules affecting renovation or letting.
The market data therefore changes due diligence rather than replacing it. A buyer cannot use a rising regional price series to waive the condominium document review. If anything, higher prices paid for older stock increase the cost of being wrong about the building.
Treat the 2025 volume jump as a measurement break
The 2025 annual report recorded 49,114 completed sales, 31.9% above 2024. It also explicitly warned that a system modification from January 2025, intended to improve completed-sale registration, may have affected the count. A careful historical account must carry that warning into every chart and cannot label the full difference as a market boom.
Price evidence still showed a strong rise. The completed price per square metre increased 7.9% to JPY 829,800, and average completed price increased 6.3% to JPY 52.00 million. But the regional pattern was uneven. East Japan REINS reported double-digit price increases for Tokyo's ward area while several surrounding prefectural or subregional measures declined. “Greater Tokyo increased” is therefore a weighted summary, not a description of every location.
The transacted stock also aged sharply: the average completed age moved from 24.53 to 26.58 years in one year, and average unit area declined 1.5%. The average headline price was being achieved across a smaller and materially older average unit. That makes a like-for-like building, station and condition comparison essential before attributing the whole annual change to underlying appreciation.
What the second quarter of 2026 adds
For April–June 2026, East Japan REINS recorded 11,853 completed used-condominium sales, down 2.0% from the same quarter of 2025. The completed price per square metre was JPY 831,300, up only 0.3% year on year and down 3.6% from the previous quarter. Average completed price was JPY 52.01 million, up 0.2% year on year and down 5.3% quarter on quarter. Inventory reached 45,995 units at quarter end, up 3.5% year on year.
One quarter does not establish a reversal, and quarter-to-quarter comparisons can be seasonal. Still, the combination is different from the 2022–2025 annual pattern: completed prices were approximately flat year on year, completed volume declined, and inventory rose.
The report also showed a completed price per square metre of JPY 831,300, compared with JPY 1,141,100 for new registrations and JPY 1,165,400 for inventory. The numerical gaps were 37% and 40%, respectively. Those are not average discounts. New registrations, inventory and completed sales differ in location, size, age, condition, seller expectation and timing. The valid conclusion is that the visible supply pool was priced far above the average completed pool; a subject-level discount requires matched comparable properties.
The market bought smaller and older units at higher prices
From 2020 to 2025, average completed area fell 3.95%, while average age increased 4.59 years. Price per square metre rose faster than average total price: 50.4% versus 44.5%. Part of that relationship is arithmetical—smaller units can carry a higher price per square metre—but the table alone cannot quantify how much came from size, location, age, quality or true same-asset repricing.
For buyers, this produces four practical rules:
- Compare the subject with completed transactions from the same building or a tightly defined peer group before applying a regional percentage.
- Control for unit size, floor, aspect, renovation, tenure, monthly charges and association condition.
- Treat an older building as a governance and capital-planning question, not just a construction-year discount.
- Review current inventory as competition, while keeping its asking basis separate from completed-sale evidence.
For sellers, the same data warns against applying a metropolitan average without recognising the subject's segment. A Tokyo ward tower, a 1980s suburban condominium and a compact investor unit can all sit inside the same regional release while facing different buyers, financeability and liquidity.
What this series can and cannot tell us
This series can establish that the average completed price per square metre rose substantially from 2020 through 2025, that average completed units became smaller and older, and that the second quarter of 2026 combined flatter year-on-year pricing with lower volume and higher inventory.
It cannot identify the value of a particular unit. It cannot prove that the pandemic, yen, foreign demand, construction cost or monetary policy caused the movement. It cannot convert new-registration prices into a bargaining discount. It does not adjust for inflation, unit quality, renovation, floor, view, management condition or financing. And the 2025 completed-volume figure has an explicit registration-system caveat.
The correct next step is to move down one level: define the buyer's geography, building type, age band, size, station distance and intended use, then extract a genuinely comparable completed set. The regional history provides context. The purchase decision still belongs to the property.
Primary sources and methodology
- East Japan REINS — 2020 metropolitan property market: https://www.reins.or.jp/pdf/trend/sf/sf_2020.pdf
- East Japan REINS — 2021 metropolitan property market: https://www.reins.or.jp/pdf/trend/sf/sf_2021.pdf
- East Japan REINS — 2022 metropolitan property market: https://www.reins.or.jp/pdf/trend/sf/sf_2022.pdf
- East Japan REINS — 2023 metropolitan property market: https://www.reins.or.jp/pdf/trend/sf/sf_2023.pdf
- East Japan REINS — 2024 metropolitan property market: https://www.reins.or.jp/pdf/trend/sf/sf_2024.pdf
- East Japan REINS — 2025 metropolitan property market: https://www.reins.or.jp/pdf/trend/sf/sf_2025.pdf
- East Japan REINS — Quarterly Market Watch, April–June 2026: https://www.reins.or.jp/pdf/trend/sf/sf_202604-06.pdf
Figures were transcribed into the local research dataset and calculations independently reproduced. Observation period: 1 January 2020 through 30 June 2026. Reviewed 23 August 2026. Later releases may revise the current-period interpretation but should not silently alter historical definitions.
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