Japan Housing Starts Fall More than Expected

2025-05-30 05:10 By Farida Husna 1 min. read

Japan's housing starts contracted 26.6% year-over-year in April 2025, underperforming market consensus of an 18.3% drop while swinging from a 39.1% jump in the previous month.

It was the second time of decline so far this year, marking the steepest pace since October 2009, as new dwellings shrank for most components: owned (-23.7% vs 37.4% in March), rented (-27.9% vs 50.6%), built-for-sale (-29.7% vs 22.8%), prefabricated (-20.5% vs 9.9%), and two-by-four (-46.6% vs -45.9%).

At the same time, construction starts for issued moderated sharply (27.3% vs 99.6%).



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