The search for paradise: Japanese property investments in North America

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
This research reports on a survey of Japanese real estate investment institutions and their behaviour in North American markets during the period 1985–1993. A number of issues are covered relating to investment motivations, Japanese perceptions of real estate values, the timing of investments, and locational choices. The article concludes that Japanese investors initially viewed North America as a real estate ‘paradise’. Yet, due to cultural differences between Japan and America, Japanese investors often made poor investment decisions which eventually soured their confidence in the overseas market. After 1990 levels of investment declined and many firms were forced to disinvest or financially restructure. It is concluded that Japanese and other real estate investors need to be wary of transposing their own domestic paradigm of how assets behave onto other property markets.

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit: