Allianz, Greystar, JLL and Greenberg Traurig to Dive into Japan Multi-Family on MTD TV

Japan has Asia Pacific’s most developed rental housing market, and the dependable returns from apartments in Tokyo and other major cities in the world’s third-largest economy helped make the country a top target for investors last year.

To explore the forces which have created durable demand for build-to-rent homes in Japan, Mingtiandi has invited experts from Allianz Real Estate, US multi-family giant Greystar, property consultancy JLL and law firm Greenberg Traurig to speak on a panel to be held at 10:00 am (Hong Kong time) on Tuesday, 18 May.

The one hour online video program, which is part of the Asia Multi-Family Investment Forum on MTD TV, will look at how the development of Japan’s white collar economy, combined with the growing scale of its major urban centres, has fostered a market where global institutions can develop and acquire portfolios of professionally managed apartments.

Investors and Advisors

Joining from Allianz Real Estate will be Rushabh Desai, the group’s chief executive for Asia Pacific. In March this year the European insurer spent nearly $90 million to acquire a set of Japanese rental homes which brought its portfolio of apartments in the country to 5,500 units across 120 assets.

Greystar will be represented in the interactive program, which is sponsored by Yardi, by Ed Boyd, senior managing director for Asia Pacific investment management with the company. After entering Asia by setting up a mainland China operation in 2018, South Carolina-based Greystar expanded into Japan in 2019 and now expects to pursue multiple multi-family strategies in the country.

The panel’s investor contingent is joined by a pair of veteran advisors who will be sharing their insights on the market trends and policy framework which have helped make Japanese multi-family one of Asia’s most investor-friendly asset classes.

Ken Sakuramoto, who serves as head of equity advisory for JLL in Japan, will be sharing from his expertise in deal structuring and financial advisory, while Joel H Rothstein, chair of the Asia real estate practice at Greenberg Traurig, will be commenting based on his experience advising some of the biggest global institutions investing in Japanese property.

High Yields on the Way

The Japan panel is the fourth session in Mingtiandi’s Asia Multi-Family Investment Forum, which has already attracted more than 2,000 viewers via our MTD TV platform.

Following next week’s show, the forum will conclude on 25 May with a panel dedicated to high-yielding rental residential segments such as student accommodation, senior living and co-living, featuring SC Capital managing director Jyoti Ramchandani, who also manages the private equity firm’s SCORE+ strategy and Shusaku Watanabe, head of Japan real estate at Nuveen.

MTD TV will be back again on 29 June to launch our Asia Logistics Real Estate Forum, which will feature speakers from GLP, Allianz, SC Capital, Logos, JLL and BW Industrial, as we bring together the region’s largest warehouse developers and investors.

August will bring MTD TV’s Asia Sustainable Real Estate Forum, followed by events focused on data centres, office strategies and proptech as part of our full calendar of 2021 events.