Japan Housing Starts Fall the Most in 10 Months

2026-04-30 05:07 By Farida Husna 1 min. read

Japan’s housing starts plunged 29.3% yoy in March 2026, worsening from a 4.9% decline in the previous month and underperforming market expectations for a 28.5% fall.

This marked the fifth straight month of contraction and the steepest decline since May 2025, highlighting persistent weakness in the property sector amid higher construction costs and weak demand.

Declines were broad-based across all segments, including rental housing (-35.2% vs -2.7% in February), owner-occupied homes (-27.4% vs -4.7%), built-for-sale housing (-21.7% vs -8.8%), prefabricated housing (-4.7% vs -2.2%), and two-by-four homes (-28.4% vs -7.7%).



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