Finding an apartment in Japan

5 comments

1. I’d throw [AtHearth](https://www.athearth.com/) in to the ring for this. They focus on foreigners in particular, and understand that the rental market can sometimes be unfavorable towards gaijin. Agent commission was 1.1 months rent, which fell in line with a lot of other places. They were super cordial, my agent usually responded within minutes or hours of sending an email, and they went above and beyond in my particular case, even though they absolutely didn’t have to. Whole process can be done in English if needed, but they obv speak Japanese too.

2. In general I would avoid services catered to foreigners. Every time I checked those agents it felt like a complete ripoff compared to finding similar quality, size, location apartments on suumo. The tradeoff is you will spend more time to find a foreign-friendly landlord. But you will be paying less on rent every month and possibly lower move-in fees. Especially if you go with an agent with 50% commission like Able. They do have people speaking English as well.

3. You know, you can just edit the housing wiki right? Also, I agree with the other post that finding foreigner-oriented services isn’t the problem here. In fact, they’re making sure to pay to be on top of all search results. But you get exactly that, a service that’s “exclusively for foreigners” that comes at a premium.

4. If you use a licensed brokerage to find an apartment or house for rent, their fees are capped by law at 1.1x the rent no matter if they focus on foreigners or avoid foreign clients all together. There is no extra charge for foreign clients or English language services, even though a foreign client requires much more labor to find a suitable place and make a contract.

   The only way you could possible pay more than the legal maximum is if you contact an “online rental introduction service” that is not a licensed brokerage. They get paid for “consulting and translation” on top of the brokerage fees paid directly to an agent.

5. I just moved back to Tokyo and used a real-estate agent for the first time through my Japanese friend here (rented through the uni I taught at years ago). We used Mitsui Fudosan and she did most of the talking+translation. They do indeed take 1.1x rent, which I’m not accustomed to. They were, however, super quick in finding an apartment tailored to my specifications as soon as it hit the market. Luckily for me, it’s owned by a foreigner and managed by a Japanese company, so they seemed more open minded. MF negotiated on my behalf as a newcomer on a 1 year J-FIND visa without an employment contract or tax return history. There were 3 competing offers and against most odds, mine was accepted. I had problems paying the rent to the Japanese company managing the apt as they don’t accept foreign transfers and the real-estate agent got me an extension for the payment without pushing the move-in date and the agency transferred the money on my behalf at no additional cost (no local bank account yet). He’s also taking me to the apt and helping me set up all utilities in Japanese at move in. Could I have managed without? Probably. But this fast-tracked the move considerably (landed mid-September) and made the process infinitely less stressful/frustrating.