Tokyo Private Rents Rise Fastest Since 1994

Rents on newly listed apartments are climbing far faster than rents already in place. Housing Japan reports which lease type lets an owner close that gap.

TOKYO, TOKYO, JAPAN, November 12, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Tokyo's rental market is now running at two speeds. Rents on newly advertised apartments are rising by close to 10% a year, while rents across tenancies already in place are rising by about 2%, the fastest pace in three decades but a fraction of the market rate. Which of those two rates a given unit follows depends on the contract it is let on.

Private-sector rent in Tokyo's 23 wards rose 2.0% year-on-year in October 2026 (preliminary), after 2.2% in September, according to the Statistics Bureau of Japan's Consumer Price Index. Growth has run close to 2% through 2026, the fastest since early 1994, after sitting below zero for most of the two decades to 2023. Advertised rents for condominium units of 30m² or less in the same wards rose 9.7% year-on-year in September 2026 to a record high.

The two figures measure different things. The Consumer Price Index covers the whole rental stock, including every tenancy already in place. Advertised-rent surveys record what landlords ask when a unit comes to market. Most tenancies in Tokyo cannot be repriced mid-term, so a rising market rent reaches only the units that turn over.

Which units turn over depends on the lease. An ordinary lease (普通借家契約) renews automatically unless the landlord can demonstrate justifiable grounds (正当事由) for declining, a threshold that is difficult to meet in practice, and a sitting tenant can contest a proposed rent increase. A fixed-term lease (定期借家契約) ends on its expiry date with no automatic renewal, and continuing requires a new agreement at the rent prevailing then. The Act on Land and Building Leases (借地借家法) governs both.

Most of the property Housing Japan manages for its clients is let on fixed-term leases. Of the leases in place on the condominiums and houses it manages in Tokyo as of May 2026, 92% were fixed term and 8% ordinary. Such contracts are rare in the wider market: they accounted for 9.2% of rental condominiums advertised in Tokyo's 23 wards in FY2025, up 2.7 percentage points on the previous year and rising for a fifth consecutive year, according to At Home Co., Ltd. In the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism's FY2025 Housing Market Trends Survey, 2.3% of households that moved into private rental housing in Greater Tokyo during the year to March 2025 reported a fixed-term contract, against 90.5% on ordinary contracts.

Lease type also sets when an owner can sell. A fixed term ends outright, so the owner can list the property with vacant possession once the lease expires. A sitting tenant on an ordinary lease is generally entitled to remain, which makes a vacant-possession sale much harder to arrange. Occupancy has held up under those terms, with Housing Japan's managed properties averaging 97.59% across the financial year April 2025 to March 2026.

"Most Tokyo landlords are reading about record rents they have no mechanism to charge, because the tenant in the unit has an automatic right to renew at the old figure," said Oji Soen, Manager, in the Property Management team at Housing Japan and a certified Rental Property Management Specialist (賃貸不動産経営管理士). "A fixed-term lease sets the date the property returns to the owner. What happens at that date is then the owner's decision to make: a new agreement, an owner moving back in, or a sale."

Housing Japan manages over ¥50 billion of Tokyo residential property for 220 owners, on the company's valuation as of July 2026. Its own team runs leasing rather than an outside agency, and each unit is marketed to the firm's client base of multinational corporations, embassies and organisations, and through a network of more than 1,300 external agents. For owners living outside Japan, the firm arranges rent remittance and virtual accounts, coordinates with tax specialists, and assigns a single relationship manager working in English, Japanese, Chinese and Spanish. Owners who would like their property managed, or who would like a valuation or rent assessment, can contact the property management team today through housingjapan.com/property-management/.

About Housing Japan
Housing Japan K.K. is a real estate brokerage established in 2000, serving domestic and international clients in the Tokyo luxury and investment property market. The company provides brokerage, leasing and property management services in English, Japanese, Chinese and Spanish. Housing Japan K.K. is licensed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (Tokyo Governor Licence No. (3) 98912) and registered with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism as a Rental Housing Management Business Operator (国土交通大臣(01)第001045号).

Maximilian Jacob
Housing Japan KK
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