The Data Analysis of Changes in the Low-Rent Private Rental Housing Stock in Tokyo: Vanishing Low　Quality/Low-Rent Rental Housing and Emerging Housing Affordability Problems

Abstract

This paper investigates the recent changes in the quantity and quality of the low-rent private rental housing stock in Tokyo. By employing the tabular data and microdata samples of the Japan Housing and Land Survey, it empirically finds the rapid decline in the low-quality but low-rent rental housing stock in Tokyo; 80% of the low-rent private rental housing stock defined as monthly rent under ¥40,000 disappeared from the market from 1988 to 2008. The affordable housing problems are emerging in Tokyo though hardly recognized as critical agenda in current housing policy discussion in Japan.