Tokyo Property Tops In Asia

Tokyo ranks number one out of 20 Asian locations as less risky and having better prospects for real estate investors in 2009. The Urban Land Institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers report also states that financing will be the biggest issue facing the market. Another large problem is that the strong yen, which cause investment dollars to lose a lot of purchasing leverage.

One hundred yen buys $1.07USD, $1.41AUD and $1.28 CAD. You would be better off taking your yen and buying overseas, like in Edmonton, than using weak currency to buy property in Tokyo.

Vanessa Williams Blue Note Tokyo

I feel like I haven't written in a while. Last night I saw Vanessa Williams at Blue Note jazz club in Tokyo. It was pretty good. She is a great singer and I knew some of the songs she was singing but not all. To be honest I prefer the doyennes of jazz i.e. Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday. She is a good strong vocalist and I could feel the sincerity in her singing.

Anyway, it was an intimate affair about 200 in the audience and we had a lobster dinner there. It was my mentor's 61st birthday so we also shared a bottle of Veuve Cliqout. I must be getting old or the bubbly was stronger than I thought because this morning when I woke up (5:55am) I felt defeated.

But with a Brian Tracyesque "I FEEL TERRIFIC" I jumped out of bed and started my day.

Hope You Have A Great Weekend,

Danielle Millar

Land Crunch

Yesterday was my day off so my husband and I went for a bike ride to see a Surrealism exhibit at the Tochigi Prefectural Museum. I remembered I don't like surrealism except for Salvador Dali.

On the way there we stopped at an open house by one of the largest home builders in Japan. Seikusui House (pronounced "sexy house"). So for a 1290sqft house we were looking at $400,000, granted it was near the university. This is a suburban area where the houses are jam packed; I mean the neighbour coughs and you hear it. This price is reasonable because it includes the land and it is in a semi-rural part of japan. By semi-rural I mean 1 hour by bullet train to Tokyo.

So when I think of homes in Canada or America with gorgeous lawns, big backyards and big square footage for the same price it is a real reality check. I know, I know I am generalizing.

One nice point is Seikusui house gave us a present just for looking at their homes. We got some kitchen and bathroom wet naps and a dishcloth. Nice!