Forex

TOKYO - The number of condominium units registered for sale in metropolitan Tokyo dropped 28.0 percent to 3,460 in February from a year earlier, Japan's Real Estate Economic Institute said Thursday.

Comparative registrations for sale in January were down 19.1 percent year-on-year.

The drop in February marks the sixth straight month of decline and the 13th fall in 14 months, the institute said.

The introduction last year of tighter building permit rules affected housing starts, it said.

Housing starts have fallen by a double-digit pace for the sixth straight month until December after the Japanese government introduced tighter building regulations in June. The registration of new condominiums normally comes several months after the start of construction.

The revised Construction Standard Law has made the certification of building blueprints stricter, following revelations that a loose screening process has allowed construction plans with fake anti-seismic data to be approved.

Condominium sales in Tokyo have been declining also because of a huge spillover supply from 2006, when Japanese property developers built large residential projects in the bay area.

The average price of a condominium unit in Tokyo was 47.68 million yen last month, up 3.2 percent from a year earlier. The average price per square meter rose 5.5 percent to 648,000 yen.

Data for metropolitan Tokyo covers sales within the capital and the neighboring prefectures of Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama.

In metropolitan Osaka in central Japan, condominium units that were put up for sale in February fell 34.4 percent to 2,226, which the first fall in two months, and followed a 44.4 percent surge in January.

The average price of a condominium unit in Osaka was 35.4 million yen, up 5.8 percent. The average price per square meter rose 6.0 percent to 474,000 yen.

Data for metropolitan Osaka covers sales within the city and the neighboring prefectures of Hyogo, Kyoto, Shiga, Nara and Wakayama.

(1 US dollar = 100. yen)