Land prices skyrocketed in Japan last year,...

Land prices skyrocketed in Japan last year, with the choicest piece of commercial real estate selling for more than $6.7 billion per acre, the government reported. Japanese newspapers bemoaned the record price jump in Tokyo, where residential real estate land rose 68.9% last year, nearly twice the previous high of 35.9% in 1973 and almost triple the increase in 1986 of 23.8%. The National Land Agency, which released the 1987 statistics, said land prices soared abnormally because of speculative buying, money surpluses and lower interest rates.