I’ll be moving to Tokyo next month for work and will be coming (only) 12 days earlier.
For the ward registration, bank acct opening, and phone number contract – I assume it’ll take a day to finish everything.
I’ve started looking at places in suumo.jp and found that most don’t entertain me because I am not yet in Japan. Ill try to contact an english speaking RA though.
Also reached out to the home finding service by my employer for a place to stay. Hopefully I can get a good deal here.
I’m thinking of booking maybe 2 weeks of airBnB only for my temporary stay. AirBnb fees are quite expensive too
So with only approx. 9 days before I start work, would that be enough time for me to move in? Assuming I already find places to view before I land in Japan.
4 comments
I recently went back through my records for another post and it took 13 days from when I submitted my application until I received my keys for the apartment. That’s not counting the time it took me to find an apartment— the whole process for me took much longer, but my data may not be useful to you since I had some special requirements, had one application called through, I could only view apartments on certain days due to my schedule, etc.
Also remember that apartments are rented empty, so on your move-in day you’ll have no refrigerator, washing machine, etc and may want a few days longer at your Airbnb to setup your new place and make it inhabitable first.
– Do you have any special requirements? (Location, pets, parking, not hearing your neighbor fap to incest manga, etc)
– Are you fluent in Japanese?
– What’s your budget? With enough money you can make problems go away.
– Ward registration you can do in 30-60 minutes.
– Bank account can actually be time consuming. They will ask for a lot of paperwork, filling out tax docs, etc. I applied for Prestia online (one of the most recommended for english only speaking foreigners) and they didn’t even look at my online application for a week.
– Phone number you could get Mobal, and pickup your SIM at the airport. Service is kind of dogshit… sometimes 3G, or slow 4G, but it will get you a local number.
– 90-95% of what you see on suumo/homes are not foreigner friendly. They might take your application, but string you along for a week before the guarantor company refuses you because you don’t have PR / don’t speak Japanese / are foreign, etc.
– People will likely recommend apts.jp to you as well, but that site is automated pulling listings from the national database and many of those will end up not being foreigner friendly as well.
I think two weeks of temp stay is very, very unwise. I would plan for a month or longer. I got COVID, for my first time, on the plane ride to Japan and that alone lost me a week of apartment hunting.
No.
The reason is that you also need to set up your bank account as well which can take a very long time. Then you need to get money into it, then you need a long term phone number, then you need to find a place, and then you can finally apply.
When my company relocates folks to Japan we set them up in a serviced apartment for one month. A lot of times people will book a second or third month out of their own pocket because a month is not a lot of time, especially when you’re working.