Effects of housing asset deflation on shrinking cities: A case of the Tokyo metropolitan area

With shrinking cities becoming a global issue, declining housing demands due to declining population leads to a reduction in land prices. Housing asset value deflation occurs mainly in suburbs, which has an economic effect on elderly households. Although some issues have already been indicated, it is unclear whether the deflation of housing assets will have a significant impact on shrinking cities. We used 209 municipality bases to predict the decreasing value of housing assets in the Tokyo metropolitan area from 2019 to 2045. The deflation of housing asset value was estimated by considering the regional differences in population. We adopted a regression model for analysis. The value of housing asset deflation is projected to be approximately 94 trillion JPY by 2045. Although the degree of deflation differed by municipality, the deflation of housing asset value occurred in nearly all municipalities: Central Tokyo was an exception. Additionally, the deflation value in many suburban municipalities exceeded 10 million JPY per household. Thereafter, a case study analysis was conducted using the average household in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The study results imply that deflation of housing assets is unavoidable for households in suburbs, and it becomes new barriers to promoting compact cities.