Hello,
I am currently in Tokyo and living in Airbnb for a month. My partner (not married yet) who is a Japanese is currently at her own home and we are trying to find a house together to move in next month.
After some research, seems like there are ample amount of units / apts that we would like to move into but definitely worried about 審査 because I’m a foreigner (originally from Eastern Asia if this helps understanding my situation) and even though she is a Japanese citizen, she has never worked in Japan yet (we came from the US). We both have a job in Tokyo now though.
We have bunch of SUUMO listing saved but just wondering what we need to do. (1LDK (closer to center of Tokyo) – 2LDK (further away from the center of Tokyo)).
Should we just reach out to all of these agents with the listings that we like – also letting them know how I am a foreigner from the beginning and how it pans out?
Are there any foreign friendly real estate agents?
Is having a Japanese guarantor (family member) enhances the possibility of getting the house?
Hopefully my partner being Japanese helps the situation but ANY feedback and advice would be appreciated since we just don’t know where to start from.
Thanks much for your time!
3 comments
First things first – don’t reach out to a whole bunch of agents. Find an agent that you like and that’s easy to work with, and give them the parameters of the type of place you’re looking for (you can send them your Suumo listings, but be aware that a lot of those listings won’t actually be available – Suumo and Homes.jp are full of outdated listings for apartments which aren’t actually available any more, and lack the most recently available places; while sometimes you can get lucky, they should generally be used to get a feel for the prices and property types in an area, not to try to locate specific places to rent). They’ll do a search on the actual live real estate database and find places that match what you’re looking for. As a general rule, every real estate agent can represent you in the search process for any given property; you don’t have to deal with a different agent for each property like in some countries.
As for the issues about being a foreigner – yeah, you might have some trouble, although your partner being Japanese will certainly help. A guarantor might help, but probably not (most places want a guarantor company these days). The trick, IMO, is to get a real estate agent who deals with plenty of foreigners and will fight your corner to some extent (e.g., pointing out that your partner is Japanese, that you have a good job, that you speak Japanese if that’s the case, etc.), but will also tacitly rule out properties for you in advance when they figure out the landlord is going to be a racist asshole, so they’re not wasting your time and energy viewing properties that won’t accept a foreigner moving in. It’s been many, many years, but I had consistently good experiences with Hikari Home back when I was moving apartments. Others will probably have more up to date recommendations, but I’d definitely say that getting a decent agent is more than half the battle (and a lot of the tales of woe on this subreddit about finding housing seem to come from people who have tried to just work with the first random estate agent they found, and ended up with someone who didn’t understand the first thing about finding property for foreign clients; or worse, tried to work with one of the no-fee / low-fee agents and discovered that you get exactly what you pay for).
1. Don’t be surprised if the Suumo/Goo/Lifule/etc. homes you’re looking at are already gone and listings are outdated. It is not an MLS – realtors list places there as eye candy and sometimes they’re still available but often they’re not. There’s no motivation to take them down right away as it might drive other business their way.
2. Pick an area and go walk around it. Then visit at night and make sure it’s still okay. Near the station you will see lots of places with listings for places available. Pick one, it doesn’t matter which one, unlike the listings they all have access to the same MLS.
3. Get ready for them to call around and explain you’re an unmarried foreigner trying to move in with his Japanese girlfriend. If you haven’t figured out going down to city hall and registering a marriage would make things easier on both of you. Make sure she’s with you though as a major problem landlords have with renting to foreigners is the communication concerns.
4. Budget about 6 months of rent to move in. First last security deposit and key money. Make sure the realtor/landlord knows this is a private not corporate move.
5. Realtors are the scum of the earth here. Don’t sign anything unless you understand it. Don’t give them any money unless you’re already approved for the place. Go back to the house/apartment and visit at night to hear what the neighbors actually sound like and that there isn’t a karaoke bar in the basement who have a subwoofer hooked up to the support columns.
It’s more simple than it sounds online, just can take some time depending on how picky you are.
1/ Spend a bit of time on SUUMO to get a sense of what your willing to pay, where you want, what kind of place you want.
2/ If you see one you like, it won’t hurt contacting the agent on sumo, it’s quite quick, they’ll get back to you very rapidly so you’ll know if it’s available or not. In my experience, as long as you filter by “new” most of the units were available. Its just that good ones get applied to quite quickly.
2/ Find an agent in the district you like, tell them what you want. Theyll show you real available options. If possible they can even take you to visit right away.
3/ Apply to what you like.
Since your partner is Japanese it should be quite a breeze really.