CapitaLand Ascott Trust Buys Three Japan Apartment Blocks From Patience for $30M

CapitaLand Ascott Trust has acquired three rental residential assets in the southwest corner of Greater Tokyo for a total of JPY 4.6 billion ($29.8 million), as Asia Pacific’s biggest lodging REIT maintains its focus on the Japanese living sector.

The three operating properties in Hiratsuka, a coastal city of Kanagawa prefecture, comprise 233 rental apartments, Singapore-listed CLAS’s managers said Monday in a release. The seller was Patience Capital Group, the private equity firm led by Ken Chan, former head of Japan at Singapore sovereign fund GIC.

The projects were built between two and four years ago and have an average occupancy exceeding 95 percent, with average lease terms of around two years. The buy boosts CLAS’s footprint in a key market and reinforces the REIT’s recurring income, said Serena Teo, CEO of the managers, which are owned by Temasek-controlled CapitaLand Investment.

“It expands our living sector portfolio with prime rental housing, which is seeing high demand from the large and diverse working-age population in Greater Tokyo amid limited new supply,” Teo said. “The three properties will benefit from strong corporate demand from nearby industrial areas and offer an idyllic coastal lifestyle that appeals to working professionals.”

Homes by the Bay

The three rental housing assets in Hiratsuka comprise Lime Residence Hiratsuka West, Lime Residence Hiratsuka East and Live Casa Hiratsuka, completed between 2022 and 2024.

The properties span a combined net lettable area of 5,649 square metres (60,805 square feet), with the largest being the 11-storey Lime Residence Hiratsuka West with 115 units and 2,871 square metres of lettable area. The 10-storey Lime Residence Hiratsuka East provides 63 units with 1,442 square metres of lettable area and the 10-storey Live Casa Hiratsuka adds 55 units with 1,336 square metres of net lettable area.

The properties sit along the Sagami Bay coastline in the southern part of Kanagawa, Japan’s second most populous prefecture. By train they are 30 minutes from Yokohama and 60 minutes from central Tokyo.

The latest buy gives CLAS a total of 35 properties in Japan, comprising a serviced residence, four hotels, 29 rental housing properties and a student accommodation asset. The portfolio includes two hotels in Tokyo and Kanazawa acquired in January of last year for JPY 21 billion, as well as two rental housing properties in Osaka and a third in Kyoto purchased in August for a total of JPY 4 billion.

In October, CLAS completed the JPY 25 billion sale of the 206-key Citadines Central Shinjuku Tokyo at a 100 percent premium to the property’s book value, according to the managers. The trust plans to redeploy the capital into debt repayment, asset enhancement and investment in higher-yielding properties.

Chan’s Plans

Ken Chan’s Patience, a Singapore-based fund manager with a Japan focus, teamed with Hong Kong’s Gaw Capital Partners last year to buy an 11-storey mall in Tokyo’s prime Ginza district.

The $983 million acquisition of Tokyu Plaza Ginza ranked as Asia Pacific’s biggest retail deal and third-largest single-asset deal by value in 2025, according to MSCI’s Capital Trends report.

Gaw holds a 91 percent stake in the JV for the 2016-vintage mall, which spans 50,093 square metres of gross floor area and connects to Ginza station of the Tokyo Metro, with Patience owning a 9 percent share. Privately held Gaw plans to transform the asset into a “vibrant” retail destination as Patience helps refresh the tenant mix.

Chan told the Business Times last March that his firm was raising a new JPY 25 billion fund focused on residential properties in Japan. The vehicle follows Patience’s first residential fund, which closed at JPY 15 billion in 2020 and is already divesting assets and returning capital to investors, with the portfolio peaking at about JPY 45 billion, Chan said.