In the existing housing circulation market, the number of successful deals has followed a steady trend with 158,000 (down 3.1% compared to the previous year) in FY2014 according to the Real Estate Information Network System (REINS) $ ^{Note 1} $ .

## (2) Real estate market status quo

The Ministry endeavors to ensure precise administration of the Building Lots and Buildings Transaction Business Act to protect consumer interest involved in housing land and building deals and to expedite distribution. There were 122,127 building lots and buildings business operators (as of the end of March 2014). This number is on a slight decline in recent years.

The MLIT, along with prefectural and municipal governments, endeavor to prevent complaints and disputes by working in conjunction with the bodies concerned while imposing severe supervisory dispositions on those entities that have breached the law. In FY2013, 314 supervisory dispositions were imposed (including 184 revocations of licenses, 65 suspensions of business and 65 orders).

To combat the problems of malicious soliciting at the time of condominium sale, the Act was amended in August 2011 to define the acts that are prohibited in soliciting in connection with building lots and buildings transactions. The Ministry will continue to alert consumers through its Website or other means and work together with the agencies concerned to provide relevant supervision and guidance.

To ensure proper management of growing stocks of condominium, a system of registration for condominium management services entities and service regulations have been enforced to ensure their proper management in accordance with the Act on Advancement of Proper Condominium Management. As of the end of FY2013, 2,230 condominium management services entities were registered, with no significant changes in their number of the last couple of years.

From a viewpoint of promoting the code compliance of condominium management services entities, on-the-spot inspections have been conducted.

Since December 2011, a “system of rental housing management entity registration” that places a certain set of rules on the fulfillment of rental housing management services has been put into effect since December 2011 to foster and develop a good-quality rental housing business. As of the end of March 2014, 3,267 rental housing management entities were registered.

## (3) Conditioning the environment for market reactivation

### a. Status quo of the real estate market

Japan’s real estate had a total asset value of about 2,400 trillion yen $ ^{Note 2} $ as of the end of 2013.

The book value of the real estate or the beneficial interest in trust on the real estate that were acquired by J-REIT (real estate investment entity), real estate specified joint enterprises, special-purpose companies and so on as objects of securitization during FY2014 stood at about 5.5 trillion yen.

J-REITs play a central role in the real-estate investment market. As many as seven brands were newly listed in just one year in FY2014, and as of the end of March 2015, 51 brands were listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Total book value of assets under management of J-REITs amounts to 13 trillion yen and the market value of the real-estate investment securities adds up to about 10.7 trillion yen.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange REIT index (TSEREIT), which provides a measure of price movements across the J-REIT market, generally moved consistently in the range of 1,450 to 1,500 points in the January-March period of 2014. Subsequently, the TSEREIT followed a firm undertone to rise for the nine consecutive months thanks to further drops in the long-term interest rate in addition to the expectation for the recovery of the real estate market, a weakening yen exchange rate and rising stock prices. These trends were pronounced at once when the Bank of Japan decided an additional monetary easing measure at the end of October, with the TSEREIT reaching the 1,900-point mark for the first time in seven years at a time.

The amount of yearly property acquisition in J-REITs stood at about 1.6 trillion yen.