LOCATIONAL PREFERENCES OF JAPANESE REAL ESTATE INVESTORS IN NORTH AMERICA

Abstract

Attention has been devoted to the globalization of international property investments during the 1980s and the role of Japanese investors in major financial centers and tourist resorts. This research seeks to establish how the locational preferences of Japanese investors in North American real estate markets were established. It utilizes a survey of 39 Japanese investment companies, together with important secondary data on investment outcomes, and distinguishes a number of ways in which information concerning overseas real estate investment opportunities was reviewed by decision makers in Japan. The results show that Japanese investors, far from being footloose, had fairly fixed locational preferences, were tied to a restricted range of centers (mainly New York, Los Angeles, and Hawaii), and hesitated to expand into a wider range of locations even after some time. Japanese investor behavior is shown to have ramifications for “world city” theory.