Winter 2025/26 Resort Intelligence: The Complete Uchi Insights Series
Our complete Winter 2025/26 Resort Intelligence series brings together asking prices, recorded sales, ¥/sqm, liquidity, scarcity and Uchi’s analysis across Japan’s leading mountain property markets.
Japan’s resort property market is becoming harder to summarise with a single number.
Across the latest Winter 2025/26 data, transaction activity has increased in a number of markets, new developments are changing the composition of what is selling, asking prices and recorded sold values are sometimes moving in opposite directions, and the difference between ticket price and price per square metre has become increasingly important.
That is why we created the Uchi Winter 2025/26 Resort Intelligence series.
Rather than publish another simple ranking of resorts, we have looked at the market from a number of different angles: what sellers are asking, what buyers are actually absorbing, how quickly properties are moving, which property types are driving the changes, and where apparently dramatic price movements are really the result of changing product mix.
The complete series contains 11 articles, beginning with a free overview and followed by a collection of subscriber-only analysis and Uchi Data Room reports.
If you are new to Uchi Insights Premium, this page is the easiest place to start.
The Winter 2025/26 series
1. The Japanese Resort Property Market Has Split
Free | Published 2 September 2026
Our introduction to the Winter 2025/26 data and the central theme running through the entire series: Japan’s mountain property markets are not moving in one direction.
Apartment activity has accelerated sharply, houses tell a very different pricing story, and some of the biggest movements in recorded sold values look much less dramatic when we compare them with the broader asking market.
Read this first if: you want the big picture before getting into individual resorts and property types.
2. The Resort Momentum Map: Price, Pace and Product
Premium | Published 4 September 2026
Which resort markets really have momentum?
We compare Niseko, Hakuba, Furano, Rusutsu and other major destinations across several measures at once, including active asking prices, recorded sold values, sales activity and liquidity.
The result is not a simple league table. Different markets have very different kinds of momentum.
Read this if: you want to compare resorts and understand where activity and pricing are genuinely strengthening.
3. The Asking Market: What Properties For Sale Are Telling Us
Premium | Published 7 September 2026
A property that sells is one observation. The wider pool of properties offered for sale gives us another view of the market entirely.
This article looks beyond transaction averages to examine how average and median asking prices—and asking ¥/sqm—are moving across Japan’s resort markets.
It also tackles one of the most important findings in this series: the price of properties being sold can move very differently from the price of the broader market for sale.
Read this if: you want to understand underlying pricing trends rather than relying solely on recent transactions.
4. Niseko Is Not One Market
Premium | Publishing 9 September 2026
“Niseko” is a convenient label, but it increasingly hides more than it reveals.
We break the market down into Hirafu, Kutchan, Niseko Town, Hanazono, Annupuri, Higashiyama, Moiwa and the wider Niseko areas, looking at pricing, product mix, availability and recorded sales.
The differences are substantial.
Read this if: you are considering Niseko and want to know what is happening beneath the parent-level averages.
5. The ¥40 Million Apartment That Explains Niseko’s Numbers
Premium | Publishing 11 September 2026
Hirafu recorded a large increase in apartment sales, while the average and median ticket value of the properties recorded as sold fell sharply.
At first glance, that sounds like falling apartment prices. Look at ¥/sqm and the wider asking market, however, and the story becomes much more interesting.
We examine the impact of Hotel101 Niseko, changing unit sizes and new apartment supply, while also looking at what is beginning to happen in Hakuba.
Read this if: you follow apartments, Niseko or price per square metre—and want to understand why averages can be misleading.
6. Houses: Where the Buyers Have Actually Moved
Premium | Publishing 14 September 2026
The house market provides some of the clearest contrasts in the entire dataset.
Niseko shows greater activity at lower recorded sold ticket values while asking prices remain comparatively resilient. Furano has developed a much more accessible house segment. Hakuba presents a more premium pricing story.
We compare asking values, recorded sold values, ¥/sqm and liquidity.
Read this if: you are considering a chalet or house rather than an apartment.
7. Land Is Two Markets
Premium | Publishing 16 September 2026
A small private building plot and a multi-thousand-square-metre development site may both be classified as land, but economically they are very different products.
We separate land up to 1,000 sqm from larger sites and compare ticket price, asking ¥/sqm, recorded sold ¥/sqm and liquidity across the major resort markets.
Read this if: you are considering land, development opportunities or want to understand why headline land averages can be particularly deceptive.
8. Uchi Data Room: The Resort ¥/sqm Atlas
Premium | Publishing 18 September 2026
This is one of the deliberately data-heavy articles in the series.
The Atlas compares asking and recorded sold ¥/sqm across the principal resort markets and property types, alongside transaction and sample coverage.
It is designed less as an opinion piece and more as a reference that Premium subscribers can return to.
Read this if: you want the numbers, want to compare markets directly, or are trying to benchmark a particular property.
9. Uchi Data Room: How Long Does Resort Property Actually Take to Sell?
Premium | Publishing 21 September 2026
Price is only part of a market. Liquidity matters too.
We examine sales velocity across resort markets and property types, while showing the number of transactions actually supporting each figure.
The results help distinguish markets where stock is moving readily from those where buyers or sellers may need considerably more patience.
Read this if: you care about liquidity, resale prospects or how easily different resort markets transact.
10. Scarcity, Supply and the Markets Where Averages Lie
Premium | Publishing 23 September 2026
Not every resort produces enough listings or transactions for an average to mean what people assume it means.
Nozawa Onsen is the clearest example. Inventory remains remarkably scarce, while the underlying samples are too small to treat every percentage movement as a robust market index.
This article looks at what we can—and cannot—learn from smaller resort markets.
Read this if: you follow Nozawa, emerging resort destinations or want to understand how Uchi assesses data quality.
11. Uchi’s Value Map: Where We Would Look Now
Premium | Publishing 25 September 2026
The final article brings the series together.
There is no single “best” resort in the data. Instead, different markets offer different forms of value: premium momentum, liquidity, value density, scarcity, more accessible house pricing and development optionality.
Having established the evidence throughout the preceding articles, this is where we give a more explicit Uchi view of what it means.
Read this if: you want the conclusion rather than another table—and want to know how we interpret the complete dataset.
Not sure where to start?
If you want to understand the overall market, begin with The Japanese Resort Property Market Has Split and then move to The Resort Momentum Map.
If you are primarily interested in pricing, read The Asking Market followed by the Resort ¥/sqm Atlas.
If you are looking specifically at Niseko, start with Niseko Is Not One Market, then read the apartment, house or land article depending on the product you are considering.
If you want the most data-heavy material, go straight to the two Uchi Data Room reports.
And if you already know the numbers and simply want to know where Uchi sees value, finish with Uchi’s Value Map.
Get the complete series
The introductory article is free to read. The detailed resort comparisons, property-type analysis, Uchi Data Room reports and Uchi’s concluding Value Map are available to Uchi Insights Premium subscribers.
Premium membership also gives you access to our growing archive of annual market reports, destination analysis and subscriber research on Japan’s resort and lifestyle property markets.
If you are buying, selling, developing, investing or simply want to understand the market more clearly, the aim is straightforward: to give you better information before you make up your mind.
12 months of Uchi Insights Premium costs less than a good pair of gloves for that Japanese powder snow.
Don’t be the one wondering what everyone else knows.
About the data
The Winter reporting period covers 1 December 2025 to 31 May 2026, with Winter 2024/25 used for direct seasonal comparison.
The reports describe properties represented in Uchi’s listing data rather than the entire Japanese property market. Active availability is cumulative across the reporting period rather than a period-end stock snapshot, while values for properties recorded as sold use their last known published listing price rather than a confidential final transaction price.
Price on Application properties are included in volume measures where applicable but excluded from price-based calculations.
Throughout the series, we show sample sizes and distinguish measured findings from Uchi’s interpretation, particularly where a small number of properties or a single development can materially influence an average.
