Tokyo: 80 m² serviced apartment or townhouse at ¥91,800,000?

[SimpleLane]

I’m comparing an 80 m² serviced apartment with a similarly priced Tokyo townhouse, around ¥91,800,000. The apartment appears easier to maintain, while the townhouse offers more control but could bring larger irregular bills.

My model covers insurance, energy performance and use, resale liquidity, tenant demand, vacancy risk and management workload. I’m less sure how to compare shared-building reserves against standalone repair risk. What costs or restrictions tend to become apparent only after the first year, and what should be on a practical pre-purchase checklist?

 

[HiddenBlueprint]

For the apartment, I’d focus less on the headline monthly fee and more on what it excludes. Ask for the reserve balance, planned major works, fee history, insurance boundaries, management agreement and any limits affecting rental or resale. A serviced setup may reduce your workload, but that convenience can narrow the future buyer pool.

For the townhouse, price out roof, exterior, drainage and heating/cooling as separate future liabilities. You control the timing, but there is no shared reserve to soften a large repair.

 

[EarlyGlass]

I’d challenge the assumption that the townhouse necessarily gives more useful control. Access, plot shape and neighbouring buildings can still constrain maintenance, while the apartment’s collective planning may make costs more predictable.

The missing fact is your intended use: home, long-term rental or shorter stays? That changes the relevance of tenant demand, vacancy and servicing costs. Before choosing, compare both over the same holding period with a base case and one bad year: vacancy plus an apartment assessment, versus vacancy plus one major townhouse repair. Also ask local agents how long comparable properties actually take to resell rather than treating liquidity as a general property-type rule.