With the new legislation coming to pass about the 180 day maximum that owners can rent out their properties for daily stays, this will create the opportunity for property managers to offer daily stay property management.
However, there are caveats to this law. While the federal government is allowing 180 days, the language of the law allows prefectural and city levels to add further restrictions where they see fit.
This creates a situation where even in Tokyo, Shibuya Ward can have different regulations than Minato Ward.
In addition, AirBnB is promising to cooperate with local officials by delisting hosts with properties that have been rented out for the 180 day maximum. It is easy to assume that AirBnB will further comply with the added local regulations as well.
So, owners that have furnished units will find that unless they cater to monthly stay tenants, their ability to rent out their units will fall to zero after the maximum days allowed have been booked.
On top of AirBnB’s promise to comply on a marketing level, owner operators are required to register with the city their unit resides in to show that their property complies with other statutes set out to cater to tourists.
With compliance requirements looking to be cumbersome for individual owners, licensed property managers, long excluded from the daily stay phenomenon, will begin to offer services tailored to existing owner operators.
For example; we at Housing Japan offer monthly stay property management services and once the 180 day federal daily stay law is passed, we are will offer daily stay management services too.
Our competition is looking at services like this as well, however my take is that these will be Japanese companies floundering around trying to figure out what foreign tourists like which will in turn negatively effect the stays of the tenants and thus the reviews the properties get.
While these other property managers will operate within local regulations, they will fail at implementation as they won’t understand what daily and monthly stay tenants need in terms of making the stay a positive one.
For owners looking to capitalize on deregulation, make sure you choose a property manager with a strong track record operating not only in your area but at your property size too. Renting out a 2 bedroom in both the daily and monthly stay market is very different then renting out a studio for example.
As with anything, do your homework first. We are always here to help to please don’t hesitate to contact us should the need arise.
Find out more about monthly furnished property management.
Editor’s Note:Takahashi San is Housing Japan’s Director of MFA (Monthly Furnished Apartments). He writes a weekly column about where this service sits in a rapidly changing regulatory environment.
