Papajojo

Finding Apartment in Japan

Posted on 24. Sep, 2009 by James in Living in Japan

I came to Japan around two months after my wife. She stayed at the campus dormitory when the first time she arrived here. But since the room in there is not enough for three of us then we decided to find an apartment outside the dormitory. After couple of weeks then she finally found it. It’s an apartment with 2 living rooms, 1 dining room and 1 kitchen. In Japan they call it 2 LDK where LDK stands for Living Dining Kitchen. It cost ¥65,000 per month just for the rent.

Basically apartment in Japan can be categorized into three type, 1LDK which monthly rent around ¥40,000 – ¥80,000, 2LDK costs around ¥60,000 – ¥100,000 and 3LDK costs around above ¥100,000. Most of apartments are non-furnished so you have to prepare it your self. However some of them are also fully-furnished but of course more expensive. But considering the price of household furnishings which are so expensive here this might be a good option. Another thing that’s affected to the rent price is the type of the building and the location. Apartment with a fully concrete building is more expensive and the nearer the location to the station the more expensive they are.

As far as i know, apartmens in Japan already equipped with standard utilities such as Gas (for bathroom/shower and kitchen), Water (for bathroom/shower, closet, washing machine, wastafel and kitchen), Electricity with 2 sockets (2 outlet each) in one room, phone line with handset and TV out. However if you don’t want to use the phone you don’t need to activate it, so just leave the phone handset there. For the TV this has been an issue with many people. If you have a TV and the NKH people knows it, they will come to you and ask you to pay for the monthly fee. But most people will try to do anything so they don’t need to pay for that. For the internet and AC, you have to provide it your self since it’s not standard utilities here.

Now how to find the apartment. Usually all apartments are offered through property agencies. There are many of them from an individual agencies to corporate ones. Large apartments usually managed by well known corporate agencies. There are few of them i know here in Osaka like Mini-mini, Urjapan, etc. Smaller apartments usually handled by individual agencies or even directly by the owner. One thing that you need to consider when finding apartments in Japan is the “Key Money”. That’s the amount of money that you have to pay on the first time you deal with the agencies which can be varies from 1 month rent or more. Besides you also have to pay for the agencies which is ranged from half of 1 month to 1 month rent fee. So the total of money you have to prepare for the first time can be quite expensive. That’s why many people try to find another way to avoid those fee especially the key money. They usually prefer to deal with the owner directly or asking for reference from Japanese friends who knows the agencies or the owners.

Well, welcome to Japan, one of the most expensive country. After you find the right apartment and prepare the money, the next thing you need to do is to prepare documents required including the reference letter, alien registration letter, etc depends on the agencies. After everything is done, then you may contact utilities firms to activate the utitilities by the time you enter the apartment.

Now, we’ve been staying for more than 4 months in our apartment. But we think that it’s quite expensive so we plan to move to a smaller apartment this October. It’s a 1LDK apartment with a monthly rent fee ¥47,000. But it’s already fully-furnished. That’s all from me now and see you on the next post!

Tags: Apartments, Key Money, LDK, Osaka, Property, Tips