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  • J: Hey guys! R: Hi!

  • J: It's moving season in Japan and we're moving! R: Yay!

  • J: I know it's really hard for you guys to read my emotions but I'm very, very excited

  • for this. And since were going through all of this, we thought we’d tell you how

  • you can look for apartments in Japan.

  • R: Some of the things about looking for apartments are really different

  • from how we do things in America, so were going to go over those parts, too.

  • J: First of all, if you just want to look

  • at apartments, you can use many different websites. We used one called suumo.jp. It’s

  • all in Japanese, but if youre trying to get an apartment on your own then you probably

  • at least need to be able to understand enough to use this website, maybe.

  • How you can use it is search by area, and you can select prefectures, and then any or

  • all the cities inside that prefecture. So for example, Aichi prefecture, and then I’ll

  • just select this one city.

  • R: This opens up a page with a bunch of apartments

  • for rent in that city. You can adjust your search for specific requirements on the side,

  • like minimum and maximum price. Minimums can be as low as maybe 20,000 yen a month, or

  • very roughly $200. Those places are likely to be places like one room apartments for

  • university students. High end apartments can be thousands of dollars. Apartments inside

  • big cities will obviously be more expensive and smaller than apartments outside the city,

  • whereas apartments in more rural areas will usually be a lot cheaper. Jun and I picked

  • a reasonably priced apartment at 61,000 yen a month, or about $610. There was also a room

  • on the first floor a little cheaper at $580 a month. Top floors can often be more expensive

  • because they have better views and theyre less noisy.

  • J: If you click on this, you can refine your search even more, by selecting things like

  • the type of material you want the building to be made out of. I’d recommend “鉄筋”

  • or “鉄骨” which is reinforced concrete. This is the least likely type of building

  • to collapse during a big earthquake, and well, Japan is always going to have big earthquakes,

  • so at least you can try to be prepared. You can also select for things like places with

  • parking lots, which will cost extra money every month, or places that may allow pets,

  • which will also likely cost more.

  • R: It was really important to me and Jun to find a place that allowed us to have pets.

  • However, those aren’t very common so this

  • reduced the number of apartments available to us by like ten times, and of those apartments

  • that allow pets, a lot of those actually only allow dogs and not cats, since cats can be

  • more smelly- J: Or scratch walls.

  • R: Yeah, they can mess up the apartments a little bit more. And a lot of apartments that

  • allow pets are usually more run down and theyre not as nice looking.

  • J: Yeah, not at all. R: You have to pay a lot of extra money.

  • But you can sometimes find special pet apartments

  • where they specifically built that apartment for people with pets.

  • So like outside theyll have a little shed that’s specifically for washing your pet.

  • J: I was really surprised. I’ve never seen something like that before.

  • R: We looked at one that had little cat doors

  • on all of the doors in the apartment, which was really cute.

  • J: Once you find an apartment you like, you have to do something that I think is different

  • from your country. Here, all apartments go through a middle man, which is a real estate

  • office. You can’t just contact the owner unless you know the owner. So, if you find

  • an apartment you like, you go to that real estate office, you talk to them, and they

  • will take care of everything for you.

  • They will even drive you to the apartment you like so you can look at it, too.

  • R: Yeah, and theyll do things like serve

  • you tea and they will help you look for other apartments and stuff,

  • but the kicker is that youre paying for all this.

  • And youre paying a lot.

  • It typically costs one month’s worth of rent, maybe a little bit more,

  • that you have to pay to the real estate office for theirhelp.”

  • Even if they don’t do anything, like if you pick out your apartment

  • on your own online and all you do is go to their office and sign the paper, you still

  • have to pay them hundreds of dollars.

  • I was so shocked when I found this out.

  • I was really upset. I was like, I don’t want their help if I have to pay them $600!

  • I don’t need that! I can do it myself!

  • J: Something else you have to keep in mind is that there are a lot of different real estate companies,

  • but not every apartment is connected to all of them.

  • So if you find two different apartments online that you’d like to visit,

  • but theyre both through different companies, then you have to go to

  • each office separately to have them drive you to their apartment.

  • But don’t worry,

  • you don’t pay them anything unless you get an apartment.

  • R: And also, this is one area of Japan where you are fairly likely to run into some problems

  • as a foreigner. There are a decent number of apartment owners who will not rent to foreigners

  • at all. They have reasons for this like the language barrier, or theyve had foreign

  • tenants in the past who caused problems, or like they left the country without paying

  • all of their rent, or messing up the apartments and stuff.

  • It was a little easier for me to find an apartment because I had Jun.

  • So he could take care of everything for us, it wasn’t

  • just me looking for an apartment by myself.

  • But even still, when we were applying for

  • our apartment, our real estate agent still had to call the owner, and he was like,

  • By the way, the wife is a foreigner

  • But she’s spent a lot of time in Japan and she speaks Japanese!"

  • And he made this call when I was sitting right in front of him.

  • It made me feel really bad about myself.

  • J: Yeah, I'm sorry.

  • Fees for moving into apartments here also kind of suck a lot.

  • Sometimes you have to pay something called key money to the owner

  • of the apartment youre moving into, which is equal to one or two months of rent.

  • And you don’t get that money back. It’s like a monetary gift.

  • R: And there could also be things like cleaning fees, renovation fees, insurance fees, fees

  • for changing the locks, or very frequently a security deposit. And the security deposit

  • is something that would be equal to 1 to 3 monthsworth of rent. But it’s different

  • from America in that you don’t automatically get all of it back if you don’t damage the

  • apartment. Apparently here in Japan you get less of it back the longer you stay in your

  • apartment. And very frequently if you want to own a pet, you have to pay additional key

  • money or security deposits. We paid an extra $1,800 just for the right to own a pet.

  • J: 3 monthsworth of rent. R: Yeah, 3 monthsworth of rent. Many apartments

  • also require you to have a guarantor, who is someone who’s going to pay for rent or

  • something in case something happens to you and you can’t pay for it yourself. But a

  • lot of apartments these days don’t let you just go get a signature from your dad or a

  • relative anymore. You actually have to go through a guarantor company, which is a company

  • that will do that service for you. You just have to pay them extra money. Usually something

  • like half a month’s worth of rent. And… J: It’s not going to end.

  • R: When youre looking at rent, that main number usually isn’t the final number, either.

  • There’s also often something like a monthly common areas service fee or sometimes other

  • things as well.

  • J: So for us, just to move into our apartment,

  • it cost us about $4,000, even though our rent is $600. And even if we didn’t get an apartment

  • where pets are allowed, we would still have to pay about $2,000 or something.

  • R: But keep in mind that all of these fees and even rent can be negotiable, so a good

  • real estate agent will try to talk the owner down on some of those things. For example,

  • we got our first month of rent free.

  • And even then it was still $4,000.

  • J: Yeah, so these fees and everything can make moving to a new place less exciting.

  • R: Pain. J: But we need a cat!

  • R: Anyway, this is all of the basic information you should need to know to get an apartment

  • in Japan. I hope this was helpful for you guys!

  • J: Thanks for watching. R: Bye!

J: Hey guys! R: Hi!

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