The Oct. 10 issue of the weekly financial magazine Toyo Keizai lists the price earnings ratios (PER) of used properties in accordance with their closest railway stations in the Tokyo Metropolitan, Kinki, and Chubu regions. PER is more commonly used to determine the value of stocks. Toyo Keizai uses it to compare housing as an investment, specifically when a property is bought to generate income in the form of rent. PER = condo price / (monthly rent X 12). PER is an important indicator since more and more people are investing in rental housing. A lower PER means a better return on investment. In order to make the statistics meaningful, all the PERs are for 70 square meter apartments. Some representative numbers from the list are included after the jump.

Prices and monthly rents have been rounded off

Tokyo Metropolitan

Shinjuku: 17.35

Ueno: 15.21

Kichijoji: 20.70

Higashi Chiba: 10.84

Omiya: 16.57

Kamakura: 19.35

Kinki

Shin Osaka: 11.66

Kyoto: 16.82

Koshien: 20.34

Umeda: 16.93

Nagoya

Irinaka: 22.12

Sakae: 12.11

Kakuozan: 16.49