Brett Cole at Bloomberg News reported Sept. 9 that General Motors Acceptance Corp., the financial unit of the carmaker, plans to increase its Japan staff by a quarter as it boosts real estate lending in the country.

GMAC, which has lent $20 billion globally, will expand its staff in Tokyo and Osaka to 250 by next year from 200, said Mikihisa Hirai, executive managing director at GMAC Commercial Holding Asia. The company may also expand in Taiwan.

"We may open an office in Taipei to manage a portfolio of bad loans if we are successful with a bid," said Hirai, who has visited the island 10 times this year. "The non-performing loan transaction sizes in Taiwan are bigger than those in Japan."

This year, Cole reported that GMAC lost out at two loan auctions in Taiwan. It plans to bid at others. Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian, the first non-Nationalist incumbent, is trying to clean up banks that let bad loans swell for five decades.

The average price paid for bad loans in Taiwan is 20 to 25 percent of their face value, Hirai said. In Japan, loans cost as little as 6 percent of the face value because they are harder to retrieve and carry less collateral.

"The acquisition business is getting tougher and tougher in Japan," said Hirai, who wouldn't disclose financial details on the company's Asian business.

Cole said that GMAC wants to increase its non-recourse lending to property buyers, construction lending and loans to consumer finance companies, Hirai said. It also buys and collects non-performing loans, trades real estate and acts as an investment adviser.

Average investment returns on Japanese property are attractive, prompting more demand for loans. Real estate yields, or revenue from rent minus expenses divided by the cost of property, return about 8 percent per year, Hirai said.

With Japanese interest rates close to zero, borrowing costs justify bets on property purchases, he said.