## (2) Precise application of the Building Lots and Buildings Transaction Business Act

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 122,510 registered building lots and buildings dealers (as of the end of 2013). This number is on a slight decline in recent years.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, 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 FY2012, 258 supervisory dispositions were imposed (including 129 revocations of licenses, 51 suspensions of business and 78 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.

## (3) Securing proper management by condominium management service firms

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 2012, 2,252 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 on condominium management services entities.

## (4) Revitalizing the real estate market

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

Japan’s real estate had a total asset value of about 2,400 trillion yen as of the end of FY2012 $ ^{Note} $ .

The asset amount of the real estate or the beneficial interest in trust on the real estate that were acquired by J-REIT (real estate Investment Corporations), real estate specified joint enterprise operators, Specific Purpose Companies and so on as objects of securitization during FY2012 stood at about 3.3 trillion yen.

While J-REITs play a central role in the real-estate investment market, five new brands were listed for one year in FY2013. As of the end of March 2014, 44 brands were listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, with the target real estate having a total value of about 11.6 trillion yen and the real-estate investment securities carrying an aggregate market price of about 7.6 trillion yen.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange REIT Index, an indicator of the price movement of the whole J-REIT market, soared to record 1700.91 on March 27 as the long-term interest rate fell sharply from 0.8% to 0.4% mainly amid hopes for the so-called Abenomics aimed at exiting deflation and expectations for the Bank of Japan taking additional steps to ease money, but plunged down to 1246.28 on June 13 under the influence of a hike in the long-term interest rate from 0.4% to 0.9% and others. Subsequently, the index seesawed until September when Tokyo was nominated to host the 2020 Olympic Games. It regained strength to reach 1500 towards the end of September and transitioned from 1400 to 1500 from October to the end of year amid hopes for further pickups in domestic business confidence and rising real-estate prices, moving at a relatively stable pace.

The amount of J-REIT assets acquisition in 2013 topped the approximately 2 trillion level for 2006, reaching a record high of approximately 2.2 trillion yen.