Income Property which exists physically has a face of financial instruments. For example, an apartment house consists of land and building, at the moment when it accommodates tenants who pay rents, it becomes a financial instrument generating incomes. It means that it is possible that said apartment could be regarded as lump of money (fund). When I was working for real estate investment fund, regarding point of view on real estate, I found that there is difference between people in financial department and people in asset management / acquisition. The former tends to see real estate purely as figure. The latter tends to see it as property (physical existence).
As explained in my profile, I had been a product planner in the electronics company. I am a property-oriented (loving property) person. These 18 years, I have engaged in real estate appraisal/research. I can say that I am a veteran appraiser. However, when I go on a site investigation, I get always excited by imaging how is todayʼs property, situation/ atmosphere of surrounding area etc. Of course, I checked its location in detailed map and land price trend/demographics beforehand in order to make projection/hypothesis in certain degree. But value of a property might be affected by neighboring properties (sort, condition, income level of habitants etc). It is impossible to grasp economic value of a property without on-site investigation.
From my experience, in order to grasp economic value of property, it is indispensable to see properties as much as possible and well think about them and store amount of reference / example in your brain.
Real estate market and economic value of properties are affected by macroeconomic factors such as interest-rate trend, state of the economy, policy on loans to real estate industry. These large movements are covered by newspaper and economic magazine in English. Along with macroeconomic factor, economic value of a property is affected by micro factor such as movement/flow of people, rise and decline of its area, individual factors of a property. These factors are rarely delivered to outside of Japan due to language barrier and space limitation of paper. Also, real estate is a case of business. Its value might differ by contents of the case (business type of tenants). It is necessary to watch ups and downs of each business and turnover trend of various industries.
In this corner, we provide small news which might affect real estate market. These are not big news covered by major newspaper but small great news to share hints to consider what will happen next in volatile market.
