Hello everyone.
Aside from YOLO Japan, Gaijinpot, Leo Palace 21 and Best-Estate, can you please recommend websites where I can search for apartments which are accepting foreigners?
Also, is it really normal that the following additional fees will be charged upon moving in?
a. Guarantor Company Fee
b. Agent Fee
c. Fire Insurance Fee
d. Key Exchange Money
e. Cleaning Fee
f. Management Company Fee
Thank you so much.
3 comments
Not only is it normal, but you can expect to pay almost double if you insist on using English-speaking agents or websites aimed at foreigners such as the ones you mentioned. Your best bet is to use suumo to find the general type of apartment you’re looking for so you can show it to an agent as an example.
If you are already in Japan (although I suppose you are not) I’d suggest taking a friend to a Japanese Real Estate Agency (REA) such as Apaman or mini-mini and going from there. If that is not possible, there are regular REAs (such as Balleggs, or some mini-mini offices) where some staff can speak English. If you are outside of Japan it might be best to get a room at a sharehouse first (such as Sakura House or Borderless House for example) for like a month and look for apartments from here so that you can actually go and see the apartment in person).
Sadly, it is almost impossible to search online for regular apartments which accept foreigners because most agencies focusing on foreigners have a limited pool of apartments that they advertise over and over again and when you contact them from abroad about a particular apartment they most usually say “oh sorry, that apartment just got rented out yesterday, but we have this similar one which is only 30,000 more and blah-blah-blah. If you want we can reserve it and make all arrangements”. Of course, you can expect to pay more than 100,000 extra for the convenience of having them sort things out for you.
Additionally, very very few landlords in Japan will rent to a foreigner fresh off the boat, especially over the internet. So, your choices are:
A) get a gaijin apartment from a website like the ones you mentioned, which is 40-50% higher per month than market price but have it ready since the day of coming to Japan;
B) get a room at a share house for a month or two and use it as your base of operations for apartment hunting.
Naturally, this only applies if you plan to stay in Japan for more than a year or two. If you’re just coming over for 6 months or so, just get a sharehouse.
yes, it’s normal. sometimes they can be negotiated
Everything except key exchange is pretty much mandatory.
You can probably talk them out of changing the lock, but that’ll mean if the previous tenant comes back with a copy of the key they can open the door.