What REIT fund does Collin Francis manage?

Do not waste your time on this. Steve Sjuggerud's advice about Japanese real estate is really simplistic. Regardless of Japanese interest rates both long and short term, Japan is a complex play in real estate. There are several reasons why this is the case.

First, Japanese urban real estate saw a huge run up from the 1955 to 1990. The Japanese economy had finally rebounded from WWII and its manufacturing developed an export quality that became more exceptable in the US and Europe. Individual Japanese had more income and could thus afford better and more expensive housing. Corporations showed significant increases in net profit year over year, and they wanted to display this success with signature buildings in metropolitan centers.

The inflation in RE prices during this time was excessive. So much so that the banks were forced to raise rates and the government was forced to raise taxes. While these measures prevented a wholesale meltdown, they were too little too late. The corporate and personal financial picture saw vast wealth tied up in real estate equity - evaporate, almost overnight.

Japan has spent 16 years enduring continuously declining real estate prices. This has created pockets of value propositions. However, these will be small and likely best appreciated by local investors with intimate knowledge, familial connections and non-speculative purposes. That is to say - it is more likely that local guy's mother will hear that her best friend's father is deciding to hang it up and is looking to get out of that warehouse which would be just perfect for local guy's office furniture consignment business, than Collin Francis will.

In addition, they are demographic factors at play in Japan which find few analogues elsewhere. Japan currently maintains a fertility rate of about 1.4. This puts the country on the whole in a pattern of population decline. Several estimates, including that of the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research of Japan, place 2011 as the high water mark for the national population with steady decline following. Additionally the Japanese population is aging rather quickly. This will place Japan as the near leader in the percentage of the population which has passed their working years. In fact, nearly 40 % of Japanese will be in excess of 65 years of age in 2050.

While the population of central Tokyo has been growing since 1996, this is only central Tokyo and it isn't growing that much. Like the US, it can be expected Japan will further adopt and implement web-based technology which will allow previous urban dwellers to enhance their quality of life by moving out.

By all of this I am not arguing either: 1) that there is no money to be made in Japanese Real Estate or 2) the Collin Francis isn't the man to do it. Rather, I am making the case that Steve Sjuggerud is over-simplifying the thought process for making a Japanese real estate investment and it may be that real estate investments generally should be left to the locals.