The aftermath of the earthquake is likely to lead to the biggest housing boom in Japan for at least 15 years. Japan's second-largest house builder, Sekisui House Ltd is set to focus its attention on building new homes locally after concentrating much of its efforts into overseas housing markets such as Australia and China over the last three years.
The company had decided to target countries that are dealing with increasing population, good economic growth and rich resources as the housing market in Japan was damaged by falling wages and increasing unemployment.
New housing starts in Japan fell to less than 1 million units in 2009 and 2010 which is the lowest level for four decades, but now demand is expected to exceed that of 1996 when 1.6 million new homes were built after the Great Hanshin Earthquake.
The Japanese Prime Minister is proposing a ¥4 trillion budget to help rebuild homes destroyed and damaged by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami. There is also a proposal that the government should raise taxes to pay for this extra spending, but experts feel this would hurt the economy and could jeopardise the revival plan.
After the last earthquake in 1996 housing starts increased for 10 months, but the area damaged in March is much larger and the need is much greater. There are about 30.3 million homes in Japan, and 90% have not yet been assessed for quake resistance. An estimated 0.4% of the 29,692 homes built by Sekisui in the area of the Hanshin earthquake were destroyed and 9.3% were just slightly damaged.
The chief executive officer of Sekisui, Isami Wada announced the company's intention to continue building more earthquake resistant homes that help give people peace of mind and security.
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