When the tenure of a housing lease contract expires, the Japanese Housing Lease Law obligates the landlord to renew the contract if the tenant so requests. On top of it, the past court rulings allow the landlord to increase the rent only mildly at the contract renewal. It has been considered, therefore, that the Housing Lease Law has been restraining the supply of rental housing, especially those with large floor spaces, even though the Law would not have much effect on those with small floor spaces because their turnover ratio is high.
Recently, a claim was made that Housing Lease Law is not restraining the supply of rental housing because it is observed that the unit rent (the rent per floor space) declines as the size of the floor space increases. This observation, however, may be caused by the fact that smaller houses are located closer to the CBD.
The current study examines the relationship between the floor space and the unit rent after controlling the proximity of each house to the CBD using a micro data for Osaka suburbs.
The result shows that the unit rent and the floor space have a statistically significant, positive relationship.

View full abstract

This study deals with residents needs for housing and living environment in down town of Osaka Metropolis. First, the characteristics of the down town area are explored through the analysis of the mesh map data on population and land use indices. Accordingly, five residential districts are extracted as typical patterns. Then, based on the result of the questionnaire survey addressed to the householders living in these districts, it is argud that residential districts in down town area fall into two main groups, the one is namely“territorial connection type” and the other, “living service type”. Condition for habitability in down town area lies in keeping a sustained community, or arranging a set of amenities. The result of the survey also indicates that very few districts maintain stability as residential area.

View full abstract

This paper aims to make clear the life-style and the housing needs of Japanese Modern Family which is going onto Post-Modern Era. This research is applied to one-earner and two-earner couples of Osaka and Kyoto region. The results are as follows; 1) The new trends found on wives (women) are post-gender oriented life-style and the consistency of individuation with symbiosis, but husbands (men) haven't a stronger tendency to own them than wives. 2) The new needs for housing are found out on family working kitchen, comfortable dining room with living, and separated private rooms for each of couple. 3) There is a tendency for closed homes to decrease gradually.

View full abstract