Buying Property in Osaka from Taiwan: How to Read Japanese Listings

Guide

If you are buying property in Osaka from Taiwan, the first figure to check in a listing is the floor area: Japanese listings show the unit's exclusive floor area in square meters, which, unlike the registered area on a Taiwanese title deed (權狀坪數), does not include a share of common areas, so even after converting it to ping you cannot compare it directly with a Taiwanese price per ping. This guide sets out, as of June 30, 2026, where Japanese listing data is written differently from what Taiwanese buyers are used to, and what to check with an agent and other professionals before buying remotely from Taiwan. It covers a single unit in a condominium building; listings for whole buildings or detached houses show land and building areas and are read differently.

Buying in Osaka: convert square meters to ping first

In Japan, 1 tsubo (坪, written with the same character as the Taiwanese ping) is about 3.3058 m² (exactly 400/121 m²), and conversely 1 m² is 0.3025 tsubo.^[1] Japanese real estate ads show area in metric units, and any fraction under 1 m² may be rounded down; for a condominium (マンション, manshon in Japanese), the area shown is the unit's exclusive floor area (専有面積, senyū menseki).^[2] So a unit listed at 70 m² is about 21.2 tsubo, or ping.^[3]

That is only the unit conversion. What really throws a comparison off is what each side's area figure includes.

Japan's exclusive floor area does not include common areas

In Taiwan, under the rules for the standard-form contract for buying an existing home, a registered building goes by the area on the register, and lists the area of auxiliary buildings and the share of common areas separately; what you buy includes that share of the common areas.^[4] When a building is surveyed, exterior walls are measured to their outer edge (a wall shared with the neighboring unit is measured to its center), a balcony built under the regulations and shown on the completion drawings is counted as an auxiliary building, and common areas are, as a rule, surveyed under separate building numbers.^[5] The title-deed area (權狀坪數) that Taiwanese buyers know usually means the total of the main building, auxiliary buildings and the share of common areas on the deed; what the common-area ratio (公設比) covers, especially whether parking spaces and driveways are included, needs to be checked separately.

Japanese condominiums are not counted this way. Under the model condominium bylaws of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), the entrance hall, corridors, stairs and elevator halls are common areas, and so is the balcony. The owner holds an exclusive use right (専用使用権, senyō shiyōken) over the balcony of their unit. The idea is comparable to Taiwan's 約定專用, but the legal basis and the limits on use are different, and the balcony is not part of the owner's exclusive area.^[6] The exclusive floor area in a Japanese listing therefore counts only the unit itself; it does not add a share of the common areas and does not include the balcony. Owners still hold a co-ownership share in the common areas and share the cost of managing them. A building's actual bylaws may differ from the model, so the building's own bylaws (管理規約) are what count.^[6] Under the Japanese real estate industry's advertising rules, internet ads and newspaper-insert flyers for resale condominiums must show the balcony area separately from the exclusive floor area.^[7] That figure is useful when you compare with a property in Taiwan, but it is not part of the exclusive floor area.

Take a hypothetical example. A Taiwanese unit with no parking space and a registered balcony, with a title-deed area of 30 ping and a common-area ratio of 30% has 9 ping of common area and 21 ping for the rest.^[8] Those 21 ping look close to a Japanese exclusive floor area of 70 m² (about 21.2 ping), but the Taiwanese 21 ping still include the balcony, the exterior walls are measured to their outer edge, and for buildings whose construction permits were applied for before January 1, 2018, the registered area may also include rain canopies (雨遮), so the two are not the same size.^[8] In other words, if you set a Taiwanese price per ping against a Japanese total price divided by the converted ping, you are not dividing by the same thing.

Wall-center or inner-wall area (kabeshin and uchinori)

There is one more way Japan differs from Taiwan. For registration in Japan, the area of a condominium unit is measured to the inner side of its walls (内法, uchinori), while other buildings are measured to the center line of the walls (壁心, kabeshin).^[9] Under the Japanese real estate industry's advertising rules (the Fair Competition Code), brochures for new condominiums sold as multiple units must state that the exclusive floor area is a wall-center area and that the registered area is smaller than this figure. That item is not among the ones ads for resale condominiums must show, so you need to ask separately whether the figure in the listing is the wall-center area or the registered area.^[9]

When you compare properties, first check whether each area figure is a wall-center area or a registered area. Later on, the registration records for the same unit may also show a smaller area than the sales materials did.

When the comparison comes out differently

As long as the two sides measure area over different ranges, unit prices cannot be compared directly. Other things being equal, the lower the Taiwanese property's common-area ratio, the smaller the gap caused by common areas, but the differences in how balconies and exterior walls are counted remain. If a Japanese ad uses the unit's registered (inner-wall) area directly, there is no gap of the wall-center area being larger than the registered area, but the differences from Taiwan's measurement rules remain.

Converting the area also solves only part of the problem. With a Japanese property you also need to consider earthquakes, the chance that the monthly management fee and repair reserve fund will go up, movements in the yen exchange rate, and whether you can find a buyer easily when you sell later. The area figures reflect none of these, so weigh them as well.

Other ways Japanese listings differ from Taiwan's

The price is the sale price of one unit. Japanese ads show the price per unit.^[10] Check transaction costs such as the brokerage fee separately, and if you want to work out a price per unit of area, first check which area is being used as the divisor.

"Walking minutes" follow a fixed conversion. This is a conversion used in ads, not the actual walking time: every 80 meters of road distance counts as 1 minute, and any remainder under 1 minute is rounded up to 1 minute; for a condominium, the distance is measured from the building's entrance to the entrance of the station or other facility.^[11] It is a distance along roads, not a straight line.

"Shinchiku" (新築, new build) has a definition. An ad can call a property "shinchiku" only if it is less than 1 year after completion and has never been lived in.^[12]

The management fee and the repair reserve fund are two separate payments. Ads show the monthly management fee and the monthly repair reserve fund (修繕積立金, shūzen tsumitatekin) per unit separately, and the management fee does not include the repair reserve fund. Under MLIT's model bylaws, all the owners together form the owners' association (管理組合, kanri kumiai), and each owner pays both amounts to it; the repair reserve fund may be used only for the specific purposes listed in the bylaws, such as planned periodic repairs.^[13] Before you buy, check whether there are plans to raise it.

In ads, a jō is a minimum conversion. When an ad gives room sizes in jō (帖, a tatami-mat unit), each jō means at least 1.62 m² (the wall-center area of each room divided by the number of jō).^[14] It is the minimum for advertising, not the actual size of a tatami mat.

Before Osaka property investment: what to check with your agent and advisers

The points below affect what you actually pay and the paperwork involved, but the answers depend on your status, the source of your funds and the property itself, so this guide does not judge them. Before you make an offer, go through each one with an agent in Japan and with tax and legal professionals:

The process for a foreign buyer, and whether you need to file a report with the Japanese government after buying
Which documents you need for signing the contract and registering the title while you are outside Japan, and which of them need to be notarized or certified in Taiwan
The route for sending money from Taiwan, when payments are due, and how exchange-rate movements affect the total price
Which taxes arise when you acquire, hold and sell the property, and which professional will calculate them for you
How the brokerage fee is calculated, and what other costs there are besides the price of the property
Whether a parking space is included in the price, or has to be rented separately from the owners' association
If you plan to rent the unit out: which management company will look after it, whether there is a tenant now, and, if you plan to offer short-term stays to travelers (usually called minpaku, 民泊, in Japan), whether that is allowed under Japanese law, the City of Osaka's rules and the building's bylaws
Whether the yield the agent quotes is simply rent divided by price, or already deducts the management fee, the repair reserve fund, taxes and vacant periods
Which seismic standard the building was designed to, and whether it has had a seismic diagnosis (earthquake-resistance assessment) or a retrofit. What Japan calls the "new seismic standard" has applied since June 1, 1981^[15]; for buildings built around that time, ask your agent which date is used to decide which standard applies

Osaka's wards: a first overview

Osaka City has 24 wards.^[16] Umeda is in Kita Ward, and Shinsaibashi and Honmachi (Honmachi 1–4 chōme) are in Chūō Ward.^[16] Within a single ward, distance to the station, building age and use can vary a great deal, so compare unit by unit rather than going by the ward name.

For an overview of Osaka Prefecture as a whole, see our Osaka Prefecture area guide.

See current listings

The area comparison in this guide works the same whichever agent you use.

You can browse our current listings, convert the areas in each listing using the steps above, and then compare them with the Taiwanese properties you know.

Investing in overseas property carries risks, including differences in exchange rates, laws and tax systems. Read the relevant materials and consider carefully before you decide.