Chart. 127 Trend of existing housing circulation share

Note: Values for the number of existing houses in circulation regarding 1993, 1998, 2003, and 2008 were estimated from the values from January to September, respectively.

Source: Developed by MLIT from "Housing and Land Survey" issued by Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and "Statistics of Housing Starts" issued by MLIT

Chart. 128 International comparison of existing housing circulation share

Note: 1 Japan: Values for the number of existing houses in circulation for 1993, 1998, 2003, and 2008 were estimated from the values from January to September, respectively.

2 France: For the calculation of the annual circulation amount of existing housing, the annual average value of annual equivalent value of monthly existing housing circulation amount was adopted.

3 UK: since the number of housing transactions includes newly-built housing transactions, "the number of housing transactions" – "the number of newly-built housing completions" was treated as the number of existing houses in housing circulation. Moreover, transactions of more than 40,000 pounds are included in the number of housing transactions. In addition, HMRC of the data source research institute estimates that this threshold excludes 12% of all transactions from survey target.

Source: Japan: “Housing and Land Survey 2008” by Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, “Statistics of Housing Starts (data of 2008, calculated in 2009)” by MLIT USA: “New Residential Construction” by the U.S. Census Bureau, “The 2011 Statistical Abstract” (Data of 2009)

UK: "Housing Statistics" by Department for Communities and Local Government (Data of 2009)

France: Insee "enquête logement" (Data of 2008) http://www.insee.fr/Ministère de l'Ecologie, de l'Energie, du Développement durable et de la Mer "Conseil général de l'environnement et du développement" (Data of 2009)

To circulate existing (second-hand) houses, home-improvement such as earthquake-resistant fittings, barrier-free access, responses to aging society and disaster, and energy saving will be required. For example, approximately 21% of existing house stocks in Japan, 10.5 million houses out of approximately 49.5 million stocks are not currently provided with sufficient earthquake-resistant fittings.

However, the market size of home-improvement was estimated as approximately 5.6 trillion yen in 2009, and therefore, it can be said that the ratio of home-improvement to housing investment of Japan is extremely small (about 30%), compared to that of Western countries (50%-80%).

Chart. 129 Change of the home-improvement market size (estimated value)

Note: 1 Improvement cost for large-sized common space in condominiums, improvement cost for rental housing by the owner of the rental housing, exterior work for outdoor facilities, etc., are not included in the estimated values.

2 Values for “home-improvement in a broad sense” include expansion/reconstruction work costs associated with an increase in the number of houses, home-improvement-related consumers’ durables, purchase costs for interior goods, etc.

Source: Estimated values calculated by the Center for Housing Renovation and Dispute Settlement Support

International comparison of housing investment share to home-improvement

Note: Values for housing investment in Japan do not include home-improvement investment. The share of home-improvement to the overall housing investment is lower than this.

Source: Japan: Cabinet Office “National Economic Account” and estimated values calculated by the Center for Housing Renovation and Dispute Settlement Support

UK, France, and Germany: materials of the Euro Construct