institutions conduct Flat 35 (guarantee type); the number of applications for loan guarantee reached 19,518 contracts and the number of loan guarantees reached 12,257 contracts as of March 2013.

For houses eligible for securitization support service, property inspections are carried out against a defined set of technical requirements, such as durability, to assure their quality. In addition, the framework of the securitization support service has been utilized to provide the Flat 35S, a housing loan with discounted interest rate applied for the first 5 years (10 years discount will be applied to long-term superior house), and is available to those owning a house that meet any one of the performance requirements of earthquake resistance, energy-conservation, barrier-free, and durability/modifiability. The FY2011 third supplementary budget and the FY2012 initial budget widened the cut in the interest rate of the Flat 35S plan which finances the acquisition of energy-saving housing for the first 5 years of its repayment from 0.3% to 1.0% to areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and to 0.7% in others (until October 2013) in the bid to forward earthquake restoration and construction of $ CO_{2} $ emission-controlled housing.

JHF also provides direct loans, such as housing loans for disaster mitigation and/or for service provided rental housing for the elderly, to areas politically important but that cannot be easily addressed by private financial institutions.

(b) Housing tax system

The FY2013 tax reform extended and expanded the scope of housing loan, housing investment, home remodeling and other kinds of tax credit to level and mitigate the temporary impact of increases in the tax burden associated with increases in the consumption tax rate.

For those income groups on which the extended and upgraded housing loan tax credit has limited effect, an appropriate benefit package was extended to the end of 2017 from a viewpoint of the housing policy that encourages the formation of good

Housing Loan Tax Reduction System Summary (2014 to 2017) Graphic II-5-1-1

Occupancy year	Deduction rate	Deduction period	Maximum deduction amount	Upper limit to deductions from the inhabitant tax
January to March 2014	1.0%	10 years	2 million yen $ ^{(Note)1} $	97,500 yen
April 2014 to December 2017	1.0%	10 years	4 million yen $ ^{(Note)2} $	136,500 yen

(Note) 1 3 million yen for Long-life Quality Housing and Low-carbon housing

2 5 million yen for Long-life Quality Housing and Low-carbon housing

Source) MLIT

housing stocks, so that increases in the consumption tax burden will be continuously eased to a considerable extent.

To upgrade the stocks of owner-occupied houses, such as stand-alone houses and condominium apartments, by making them available for rent in the rental housing market, the Ministry is working to prepare the rental housing market as by disseminating the fixed-term house rental system and normalizing the subleasing business. $ ^{Note} $

## (4) Stable supply of housing for those particularly in need

① Supply of public rental housing, etc.

To deliver public housing supplied by local governments precisely to low-income earners in serious need of housing and promote the supply of quality rental housing to households consisting of elderly people, etc. who need special consideration to stabilize their housing, the Ministry positions the Regional Excellent Rental Housing Program as a scheme that complements the work of public housing and subsidizes the expenses incurred for the development, etc. of public rental housing, etc. and also for the reduction of the rents.

To provide a housing safety net for those who are obliged to leave their homes because of dismissal or any other reason, the Ministry promotes a single-source information service that releases information about the public housing available to the retiring individuals, rental housing from the Urban Renaissance Agency and so on in coordination with local branches of Hello Work (Public Employment Security Office) and also takes actions aimed at stabilizing the dwelling of the retiring individuals, as by driving rent subsidization, etc. from General Grants for Social Infrastructures.