[Assessed 81.1%] Apartment Building in Zama, Kanagawa — 15 min from Zama Sta.

The listed address was "Tateno-dai" with no chome. Tateno-dai runs from 1-chome to 3-chome, and the road price band varies from JPY 105,000 to JPY 140,000 per sqm — close to double. Another site carrying the same property gave the address as "Tateno-dai 3-chome 26", which fixed the location.

We measured on block 26 of sheet 80081. To identify the block we geocoded numbers 20, 21, 22, 26, 27 and 28 in Tateno-dai 3-chome with the Geospatial Information Authority's address search and matched them against the circled numbers on the map. Number 21, Tateno-dai Park, sits north of 26; 27 is directly south; 28 is west across a road; 22 is east — exactly as the map shows. The roads bounding block 26 to the west, north and south are all JPY 125,000 per sqm.

There is a single exterior photograph, and at 281 x 213 pixels it is small. Along the road to the west there is a white-painted concrete block wall; counting the courses gives about four, roughly 0.8 m. Cars drive into the parking space at close to road level, so there is no stepped approach.

Since the photograph alone was not conclusive, we measured the height of the road and a point 7 m inside the site at 13 places using the Geospatial Information Authority's 1 m elevation data. Across the 16.4 m frontage the difference is 0.0 to 0.7 m, and 1.0 m at most if extended to the northern edge. The interior of the block is an almost flat plateau; a fall of more than a metre appears only more than 30 m east of the site.

The listings disagree on the structure. Kenbiya says reinforced concrete; three listings of the same property on another site all say light-gauge steel, and the exterior photograph looks like light-gauge steel cladding. We took the conservative reading — light-gauge steel, at a replacement cost of JPY 220,000 per sqm over a 22-year statutory life. At 48 years old, though, no years remain under either reading, so the building is assessed at zero whichever is correct.