In December 2012, the Abe administration enacted an economic policy – known as ‘Abenomics’ – with the intent of aiding Japan’s economy to break out of the prolonged deflationary spiral and get back onto a growth trend. The first phase of the strategy entailed the implementation of the monetary easing measures by the Bank of Japan. With the booming stock markets and expectations for improved corporate performance of export-oriented companies due to the depreciation of the yen, sentiment improved significantly for corporations and the nation’s economy. Investment capital also began to flow into Japan’s real estate markets – particularly the J-REIT market – and investment unit prices, which had been stagnated since the global financial crisis, clearly began to rise steadily.

The real catalyst for Japan’s economy was the selection of Tokyo as the host city for the 2020 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, that was announced in September 2013. This further bolstered the confidence of Japanese corporations, and encouraged infrastructure development especially transportation and other agencies which were previously just concepts and plans. Furthermore, the infrastructure development activities triggered a number of directly or indirectly related private-sector urban development projects.

In this paper, while taking a panoramic view of the real estate market – which is current in an expansionary phase – we will also look at prospects concerning the activation of infrastructure development and private-sector urban development projects moving toward the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games.