A scoop of the highest caliber! A very narrow 5 tsubo store in Shinjuku Golden Gai was sold for “80 million yen”!
Even though the number of foreign tourists is rapidly increasing due to the rising demand for inbound tourism,...... the successful bid price was approximately 10 times the standard price!
There are rumors in this neighborhood that a 73-year-old, two-story old building has been turned into a wad of cash.
Nearly 300 bars and snack bars line up on the approximately 2,000 square meters of land that is lined with barracks and row houses in Shinjuku, Tokyo. In early April, a land and building on Golden Gai totaling only 5.2 tsubo (8.2 square meters) was sold for the huge sum of 80 million yen at an auction overseen by the Tokyo District Court. The starting price of the auction was 7.75 million yen, more than ten times the price of the successful bid.
When this reporter visited the sold store, he found the bar on the first and second floors of the narrow building, the walls of the second floor discolored yellow, and the door on the first floor was bare with peeling paint and wood. It was hard to believe that the house was worth 80 million yen.
I wonder how many years it will take to get the original price of 80 million yen. I wonder how many years it will take to pay off the 80 million yen. It’s so expensive it’s a little creepy.
A real estate agent in Tokyo explained the outcome of the auction as follows.
Golden Gai has been introduced in foreign guidebooks and is now a tourist spot for foreigners visiting Japan. They are planning to make it profitable by renovating the area to create an atmosphere that is easy to enter, even at first glance, and by starting a business with a style and price range that is suited to foreigners, such as by eliminating the charge service, which foreigners are not familiar with, and raising the price of alcohol to compensate for the change.
The day when Golden Gai is transformed may soon be near.
From the May 10 and 17, 2024 issue of FRIDAY
PHOTO： Yuri Adachi
