Photo/Illutration Skyscrapers in Tokyo’s Minato Ward (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The proportion of existing apartments costing more than 100 million yen ($680,000) in Tokyo’s 23 wards has surged 16-fold over the past decade, according to a survey.

In Minato and Chiyoda wards, more than half of the preowned units for sale now fall into this category, indicating that the soaring prices of newly built apartments are spilling over into the secondhand property market, too.

The survey was conducted by Lifull Co. based on existing apartments listed on the company’s real estate information website, Lifull Home’s.

In 2015, units costing more than 100 million yen accounted for just 1 percent of listings.

That share had risen to 3 percent by 2020.

It reached 16 percent during the first six months of this year, meaning that one in every seven listed units exceeded the 100-million-yen mark.

By ward, Minato had the highest proportion at 55 percent, followed by Chiyoda at 51 percent. Chuo came in next at 45 percent.

Price surges are concentrated in the capital’s central wards.

Listings above the threshold were 5 percent or less in the 10 wards at the bottom of the ranking, including Suginami and Ota, with none in Adachi.

“Assuming that prices of newly built apartments will continue to rise, the proportion of existing units worth more than 100 million yen is likely to increase even further,” said Toshiaki Nakayama, deputy director of Lifull Home’s research institute.

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