We’ve done France, Spain and the US; we’ve branched out into Eastern Europe and the Baltic states; and, if the people who identify future hotspots are to be believed, we’re now looking seriously at Brazil and Argentina, China and India, South Africa and South East Asia.

We’re jetting off to just about every corner of the globe in search of bricks and mortar – everywhere, that is, except Japan. Japan is the great unknown, the blank space on our ever-expanding property map of the world. You never hear it mentioned.

Why? Well, first, and most obviously, it’s a long way from Blighty and expensive to get to – Japan is not the sort of place you can pop over to for a weekend break.

Distance, however, hasn’t stopped us investing in equally far-flung locations, so what’s kept us out of the Japanese market? There are two additional reasons –money and culture.

A Slippery Slope

On the financial front, those of you who remember the 80s will know that back then Japan had the most expensive real estate on the planet – in Ginza, Central Tokyo, land prices reached a staggering $1.5 million per square metre.

During the boom years it was a proud Japanese boast that the land under the Imperial Palace in Tokyo was worth more than the entire state of Florida. Then in 1991 the bubble burst and the country was left with a Sumo-sized negative equity problem.

Prices have been on the slide for 16 years, and ordinary Japanese people have paid the price. It’s not uncommon for homes, bought before prices fell like cherry blossoms, to have dropped in value by up to a half.

Shoga nai, as the Japanese say: it can’t be helped. However, even with price falls of 50-60 per cent, you’re still unlikely to snap up bargains in Japan’s major cities.

Last week a report from CB Richard Ellis revealed that residential prices in Tokyo are the third most expensive in the world - £900 per square foot compared with £1,000 in New York and £1,200 in London.

In Tokyo’s prime locations, says Ken Arbour, director of estate agency Century 21 Japan, you’ll pay 5-6 million yen, approximately £27,000, per tsubo - the traditional measurement of 3.3 square metres, or two tatami mats.

The cheapest place on his company’s books at the moment is 63m yen for an 84 m sq apartment in Minato-ku – that’s £282,500. In the highly regarded Setagaya-ku a two-storey family home (232 sq. m) will set you back 218m yen - £977,578.

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