The ULI Japan Fall Conference 2022 was held on December 1^st, 2022. Over 250 people participated onsite and online, gathering at Base Q Tokyo Midtown Hibiya to discuss changing foci and evolving policies as Japan’s real estate market embraces new ways forward.

Master of Ceremonies Jun Saito (Pembroke) opens the conference

The day began with opening remarks by Shuji Tomikawa, ULI Japan Council Chair and President of Mitsui Fudosan Investment Advisors, and featured a guest appearance by Professor Khoo Teng Chye, ULI Asia Pacific Chair.

Opening remarks by ULI Japan Chair Shuji Tomikawa

J.P. Toppino, co-founder and President of PAG, led the keynote, showing the numbers and outlining his outlook on the Japanese market for the next year. He left the audience with an overall hopeful outlook on where Japan’s real estate market is headed compared to other world markets.

Keynote speech by J.P. Toppino (PAG)

Diving even further into the numbers, Eiji Sakaguchi, President and CEO of CBRE, led a panel forum with speakers Hiroshi Okubo, Executive Director, Research at CBRE, and Tatsuya Terazawa of the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan. Audience members were treated to a highly informative discussion of market numbers, as well as approaches and strategies based on market conditions.

The Japanese real estate market has also seen an increasing shift towards luxury high-end clients and tenants in the last year. Ken Aoyama, President and CEO of Samurai Capital,  skillfully led us through a series of engaging one-on-one fireside chats, asking the hard questions of industry leaders from a diverse lineup of companies focusing on the market shift toward luxury clients and tenants, as well as successful projects and challenges therein.

Fireside chat with Ken Aoyama (Samurai Capital)

The final keynote was led by Hirofumi Hirano, President and Representative Director of KKR. In the last year Japan has seen a rush of private equity investment into real estate from overseas and through M&A acquisitions. Hirano, a long-standing dominant player in this area, shared his insights on the market in Japan and expectations for the future during this pivotal period in the Japanese market.

What our attendees had to say:

“The Proptech Connection thoroughly enjoyed participating at the ULI Japan event, meeting some of the leading institutional real estate investors and other key stakeholders in the APAC market. It was great sharing insights with industry thought leaders from South Korea, Japan, Singapore and other key proptech markets in the wider APAC market. We look forward to finding synergies and presenting valuable global proptech insights to the wider network” Ivo Van Breukelen, The Proptech Connection

Highlight:

This year’s conference featured ten startup companies in the real estate sector in Japan, many taking innovative, tech forward approaches to new niches in the market. This year saw the initiation of a program at ULI Japan, dreamed up to quantitatively support and highlight startups by giving them recognition for their innovations and accomplishments in the industry, as well as a chance to expose and pitch their companies. Startups had booth spaces at the conference, leading to a day of lively and engaging one-on-one interactions with peers in the field. The featured startups were pulled from a greater pool of startups who applied to the program, representing the best of the up-and-coming companies in the sector. The conference concluded with a presentation of the innovation award to this year’s top startup, awarded to EaSyGo. ULI Japan hopes to continue in this vein supporting startups: creating space for them to grow, find mentorship and network in the industry.

Startup boths on display

Takeaway:

Many speakers expressed an overall positive outlook on where the Japanese real estate market is headed, with many discussions centered on a shifting focus on luxury high-end clients, creating community focused spaces within development projects, as well as sustainability and resilient designs. Presenters spoke about their unique insights, current and ongoing innovative projects and in-house approaches to challenges in these areas.

Networking after the conference

In conjunction with the conference, ULI Japan also hosted this year’s Asia Pacific (APAC) Executive Committee (EXCO) meeting, welcoming guests from Japan, Singapore, South Korea and the Philippines.