In terms of gearing, there is one important difference between...

In terms of gearing, there is one important difference between AJA and other reits. The spread between rental yield and debt is somewhere around 3% for AJA whereas for other reits the spread is tiny.

Also, if you look at gearing in terms of interest cover ratio not debt/equity, AJA is quite healthy.

If you compare AJA and other reits on the same gearing metrics (debt/equity), you are missing two points: (a) costs of debt is only about 2% in Japan (b) there is a healthy spread between costs of debt and rental yield.

Cash is king and banks do not want bad debt. So as long as AJA has healthy cashflow, there is no issue.