Gunma A popular area for investment with an easy access to Tokyo
Maebashi City / Takasaki City / Isezaki City / Ota City
Recently, the Tomioka Silk Mill has been registered as a World Heritage Site, and the prefectural mascot “Gunma-chan” won the “Mascot Grand Prix” and increased the visibility of the prefecture. Located next to both Saitama and Ibaraki Prefectures with convenient access to Tokyo, Gunma Prefecture has become a popular area for real estate investment.
Maebashi | Takasaki | Isezaki | Ota | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1R | 34,800JPY | 36,200JPY | 35,500JPY | - |
1K | 39,200JPY | 39,100JPY | 36,200JPY | 37,400JPY |
1LDK | 54,600JPY | 57,900JPY | 51,400JPY | 48,200JPY |
2LDK | 59,200JPY | 63,400JPY | 57,500JPY | 55,500JPY |
Within Gunma Prefecture, Maebashi City and Takasaki City are the two most popular major cities. Maebashi city is the capital of Gunma but the key is to look for properties that has an on-site parking lot rather than the ones near the train station since road-side market is more developed than the area around the train station. On the other hand, with the shinkansen stop, it is more popular around the train station in Takasaki city. Therefore the land price marks highest in the whole prefecture and there are quite a few properties with lower yield. New launch of Hokuriku Shinkansen is most probably the one of the reasons why Takasaki city is drawing attention as well.
Gunma Prefecture is certainly getting more popular among investors, but even within the city limits there are areas that do not have a high rental demand so it is very important to examine each individual area. However, even though it is easy to see that properties near a rail station have a high demand, even properties that are far away can have a high demand as well. If the property has an on-site parking lot, there is a high chance that the rental demand is also sufficient.
Both Isezaki City and Ota City have populations over 200,000, and are home to a number of industrial parks which makes the rental demand of these industrial employees quite high.
Fujioka City, Tamamura City, Isezaki City, and Ota City all have very convenient access to both Takasaki, Maebashi City and Saitama prefecture so many tenants live in these areas and commute to work every morning. This prefecture may at first seem like a very rural area, but as the access is very good there are many big name supermarkets, restaurants, and shopping centers even outside of the big cities. Recently, the demand for properties even outside of Takasaki and Maebashi City has increased so the average gross yield has decreased to between 8~10%.