Apartment Hunting in Japan
I've lived in many apartments since leaving home at around 18. I even
owned a home and sold and built
homes for a while, but I learned a great deal hunting for an apartment
in Japan. And the cost. Wow. Impressive. Granted, we
didn't have a lot of
help, but still. Wild experience.
Initially, I was most worried about availability. When I first moved to the Bay Area from Boston (pre-bubble 2000) it was extremely difficult finding an apartment due to a simple lack of availability. The Bay Area was living in la-la land. So, although Japan is far from pre-bubble Bay Area hysteria, there are a profoundly large number of people living here. I mean, Japan is similar in size to the state of California, and there are 40 million people in California and 130 million in Japan. See my point? So, I was concerned about availability in that respect. My next concern was time. We had very little, basically. Getting an address is something that multiple things depended on -- all of my paperwork for Sun Japan, my cell phone (which is a story all by itself), my bank account, my immigration documentation, all the basic services to live, etc. I'm without status unless I have an address and we only had a week. I'm glad we got my visa back in San Francisco because that was required for pretty much all the important things. Then getting some of the other items dependent on the address also takes time and some would also be required by Sun Japan and I had to start work really, really soon. So, zero time. Get an apartment. Immediately.
It turns out that there are plenty of apartments in Japan. Not a problem. Now, they are, ah, slightly smaller than the places in San Francisco, and a trillion or so times more expensive than the U.S., but at least they are there for the renting. Problem solved, right? No. In the U.S. I've always rented from an owner or a Realtor. Here in Japan we ran into a situation where the owner (no clue who he/she is) had a Realtor list the apartment through yet another agent. So, two levels of people separating owner from tenant? We didn't realize this initially. To make matters more interesting, my wife has been out of the country for a decade, so she didn't have a lot of resources here in the local area and a lot of her documentation had to be updated. There was so little time to do all this. Nevertheless, without her this entire move would not have been possible and it's so not even close -- she's handled all of the interactions with the Realtors and immigration, and also, I doubt I'd be able to be employed here by Sun Japan since she's had to fill out all of my paperwork and explain it to me as well. So far, everything is 100% Japanese. The language divide for me is nothing short of monumental. I would have died on day one. I'm sure there are more westernized areas that I could have survived in, but not where we were looking. In fact, during that first week or so, I only saw 15 westerners. Yes, I counted. Next year this will be much less of a problem since I'll know a fair amount of Japanese. After a few days at Sun, I began to meet many people who know a fair amount of English, so I'll be ok. Back to apartments ....
So, we had a large number of places to look at that we found via the web from several weeks ago in San Francisco. We also had a friend looking for us. But when we got here, getting to actually see the apartments and Realtors proved extremely challenging in 100 degree heat with a one year old who didn't find any of this amusing. I mean, you try changing a screaming baby on a packed express train -- and I mean sushi rice packed! -- darting down the track at a 100 miles an hour while you are trying to not miss your stop. My goodness. Then to the stations. Stroller, wife, kid, kid's stuff and all. Why do kids require so much infrastructure, anyway? Most stations have elevators (way over there, though), but many do not. Japan is far behind the U.S. in terms of wheelchair access, I'm finding out. So, no elevator? Not a problem. Just pick up the screaming bundle of joy and lug her wiggling little 25 pound body up 100 steps or so packed in with a sweating commute crowd in one of the most densely populated places on the planet. Nice. Keep things in perspective. That's another thing -- perspective. My wife grew up here. She's a Buddhist. None of this really stressed her out, but it damn near killed me. Why?
So, we found several nice places through a Realtor the first couple of days. Cool. Make a decision and give this guy some money. I'm dying. Besides, we have an hour trip back to our hotel after we finish getting in and out of his car a dozen times. Not so fast. The paperwork takes, ah, hours. Then there's the guarantee. What the flip is a guarantee? I'm a grown man, I have a pile of cash (that's anther thing ... everyone carries lots of cash around here), why do I need someone to co-sign my lease? Well, it turns out that it's required for everyone, not just foreigners. I knew that going in, but it pissed me off anyway. I'm sorry. It's silly. Anyway ... this is just step one. Now we have to go to another Realtor's office -- on the other side of the city -- to do the final paperwork. So, now we are on to the second layer of infrastructure separating us from the owner of the building. That took a few days to set up and required another trek via our rather rough navigation system. I had to sign the documents using my handy little Japanese "stamp" and everything. It's basically a red stamp with my name in katakana. I had to use it at Sun, too. Everyone has one and now I do too. Pretty cool. It's a signature, basically. Although I'm used to just "signing" documents, that procedure takes place via stamp here. It makes sense, I guess, because there's really no script version of Japanese writing. I'll need the stamp get a bank account, and I had to use it at immigration, too. Didn't need it for my visa, though.
Ok, so it's x months of security and x months rent, a key fee for the new locks (which was nice since they actually changed the lock and it's a very good lock), and some other stuff. We had to pay for a new tatami floor, but this is normal here. Pretty standard stuff. Oh, and then there's this other, ah, fee, tucked in there going to the owner and one of the middlemen. It has a name, but I forgot. It's legal, but in other circumstances I'm not so sure. I'm from New York, too, so I have an entirely different name for it. You are paying for access or the privilege of getting something. I saw it in New York a lot dealing with politicians sucking money from business owners and unions via fund raisers and even from their own public employees (that part really grossed me out), and it pervades many parts of the construction and heavy equipment business. Just pay it. But we had to pay -- thousands and thousands when added to the security and 1st month's rent, etc -- up front and days before we signed the lease, and we had to transfer it from our ATM. What's up with that? My wife laughed at me on that one. They've been transferring large sums of cash via ATM for years around here. I never did that in the U.S. Can you? Maybe you can, I don't know, but I really doubt it. I mean, have you tried to wire transfer money from any bank in the U.S. lately? It's painful, bureaucratic, expensive, slow, and based on the filling out of very analog paper forms with the information then being keyed into a compute. It's dumb, actually. I just transferred a gallon of cash through three banks to Japan, and I think it would have been easier to ship gold across the ocean. Anyway, for deposits and fees to rent apartments I prefer to use a simple check. But this is Japan, and I've yet to see a check. Are there any? That wire transfer from the ATM was really slick, though, I must say. That's going to come in handy. Very cool.
Ok, so now we have an apartment. It took just over a week, which really ties things up because as I mentioned several things are dependent on that address. So, we filed for everything else immediately and held our breath. Next we had to buy a stove, a refrigerator, a washer, etc. Again, I knew this going in but experiencing it is another game altogether. Apartments here are basically walls and ceilings and rooms with gas, water, and power connections. You bring in your own stove (no ovens around here), a heater for the winter, an air conditioner for summer (though we lucked out and our apt came with one), a refrigerator for your food, ceiling lights so you can see, and a washer for your cloths. The washers here are cool. All the apartments have connections in the bathrooms for these compact washers. Very cool. But buying all this stuff all at the same time is expensive, and the prices here in Japan are higher than I've ever seen anywhere I've lived, and I've lived in some pretty expensive places -- New York, Boston, San Francisco. I keep hearing this place has been in a recession. Ha. What a joke. I see everything but a recession here.
I suppose we'll look into cable TV, but I'm less concerned about that. I don't watch much TV, and it's kinda nice be away from the extremism of the U.S. media. A little quite for a little while will be nice. But I do need Internet access, though. Cable or DSL is fine, but there's no need to live in the dark ages of technology because I just discovered that I have fiber right into my building. How freaking cool is that? In reality, I don't care. I don't need those speeds, but I do find it interesting that fiber for my computer is built in and more than affordable, but I have to go out and buy refrigerator. Maybe it makes sense ... they provide the network and you provide the access device. They've taken it to all new levels, though.
So, there you have it. My apartment adventure. The abridged version, obviously. But seriously, although the bureaucracy was a bummer, the people were all great. Their efficiency belies and transcends what I see (perhaps incorrectly) as bureaucracy. The guy at the first agency who showed us the apartments was very nice and exceedingly hard working, and each apartment was absolutely spotless. He even brought slippers for us to use to walk inside and look at each place. The slippers were too small for me, so I just took my sneakers off and walked in my socks, but it's the thought that counts. I don't know about you, but I've never moved into a clean apartment in my life. I've always had to clean. With our apartment here, though, and all the ones we looked at, it wouldn't be possible to clean any further. That was a really, really nice touch.
Oh, I still can't get mail because my address hasn't been confirmed. You believe that? After all this to get an address and the post office hasn't confirmed our address. And, no, I don't know what means. But it doesn't matter much because the post office in San Francisco has never been capable of forwarding or holding my mail. Every trip they mess it up. Now, this is a pretty long trip -- life -- so we'll have to see how they perform. So, I have no clue where my mail is. Probably where my stuff is -- floating out on the Pacific someplace.
Everything new every day. It's totally exhausting. But very exciting at the same time.
Initially, I was most worried about availability. When I first moved to the Bay Area from Boston (pre-bubble 2000) it was extremely difficult finding an apartment due to a simple lack of availability. The Bay Area was living in la-la land. So, although Japan is far from pre-bubble Bay Area hysteria, there are a profoundly large number of people living here. I mean, Japan is similar in size to the state of California, and there are 40 million people in California and 130 million in Japan. See my point? So, I was concerned about availability in that respect. My next concern was time. We had very little, basically. Getting an address is something that multiple things depended on -- all of my paperwork for Sun Japan, my cell phone (which is a story all by itself), my bank account, my immigration documentation, all the basic services to live, etc. I'm without status unless I have an address and we only had a week. I'm glad we got my visa back in San Francisco because that was required for pretty much all the important things. Then getting some of the other items dependent on the address also takes time and some would also be required by Sun Japan and I had to start work really, really soon. So, zero time. Get an apartment. Immediately.
It turns out that there are plenty of apartments in Japan. Not a problem. Now, they are, ah, slightly smaller than the places in San Francisco, and a trillion or so times more expensive than the U.S., but at least they are there for the renting. Problem solved, right? No. In the U.S. I've always rented from an owner or a Realtor. Here in Japan we ran into a situation where the owner (no clue who he/she is) had a Realtor list the apartment through yet another agent. So, two levels of people separating owner from tenant? We didn't realize this initially. To make matters more interesting, my wife has been out of the country for a decade, so she didn't have a lot of resources here in the local area and a lot of her documentation had to be updated. There was so little time to do all this. Nevertheless, without her this entire move would not have been possible and it's so not even close -- she's handled all of the interactions with the Realtors and immigration, and also, I doubt I'd be able to be employed here by Sun Japan since she's had to fill out all of my paperwork and explain it to me as well. So far, everything is 100% Japanese. The language divide for me is nothing short of monumental. I would have died on day one. I'm sure there are more westernized areas that I could have survived in, but not where we were looking. In fact, during that first week or so, I only saw 15 westerners. Yes, I counted. Next year this will be much less of a problem since I'll know a fair amount of Japanese. After a few days at Sun, I began to meet many people who know a fair amount of English, so I'll be ok. Back to apartments ....
So, we had a large number of places to look at that we found via the web from several weeks ago in San Francisco. We also had a friend looking for us. But when we got here, getting to actually see the apartments and Realtors proved extremely challenging in 100 degree heat with a one year old who didn't find any of this amusing. I mean, you try changing a screaming baby on a packed express train -- and I mean sushi rice packed! -- darting down the track at a 100 miles an hour while you are trying to not miss your stop. My goodness. Then to the stations. Stroller, wife, kid, kid's stuff and all. Why do kids require so much infrastructure, anyway? Most stations have elevators (way over there, though), but many do not. Japan is far behind the U.S. in terms of wheelchair access, I'm finding out. So, no elevator? Not a problem. Just pick up the screaming bundle of joy and lug her wiggling little 25 pound body up 100 steps or so packed in with a sweating commute crowd in one of the most densely populated places on the planet. Nice. Keep things in perspective. That's another thing -- perspective. My wife grew up here. She's a Buddhist. None of this really stressed her out, but it damn near killed me. Why?
So, we found several nice places through a Realtor the first couple of days. Cool. Make a decision and give this guy some money. I'm dying. Besides, we have an hour trip back to our hotel after we finish getting in and out of his car a dozen times. Not so fast. The paperwork takes, ah, hours. Then there's the guarantee. What the flip is a guarantee? I'm a grown man, I have a pile of cash (that's anther thing ... everyone carries lots of cash around here), why do I need someone to co-sign my lease? Well, it turns out that it's required for everyone, not just foreigners. I knew that going in, but it pissed me off anyway. I'm sorry. It's silly. Anyway ... this is just step one. Now we have to go to another Realtor's office -- on the other side of the city -- to do the final paperwork. So, now we are on to the second layer of infrastructure separating us from the owner of the building. That took a few days to set up and required another trek via our rather rough navigation system. I had to sign the documents using my handy little Japanese "stamp" and everything. It's basically a red stamp with my name in katakana. I had to use it at Sun, too. Everyone has one and now I do too. Pretty cool. It's a signature, basically. Although I'm used to just "signing" documents, that procedure takes place via stamp here. It makes sense, I guess, because there's really no script version of Japanese writing. I'll need the stamp get a bank account, and I had to use it at immigration, too. Didn't need it for my visa, though.
Ok, so it's x months of security and x months rent, a key fee for the new locks (which was nice since they actually changed the lock and it's a very good lock), and some other stuff. We had to pay for a new tatami floor, but this is normal here. Pretty standard stuff. Oh, and then there's this other, ah, fee, tucked in there going to the owner and one of the middlemen. It has a name, but I forgot. It's legal, but in other circumstances I'm not so sure. I'm from New York, too, so I have an entirely different name for it. You are paying for access or the privilege of getting something. I saw it in New York a lot dealing with politicians sucking money from business owners and unions via fund raisers and even from their own public employees (that part really grossed me out), and it pervades many parts of the construction and heavy equipment business. Just pay it. But we had to pay -- thousands and thousands when added to the security and 1st month's rent, etc -- up front and days before we signed the lease, and we had to transfer it from our ATM. What's up with that? My wife laughed at me on that one. They've been transferring large sums of cash via ATM for years around here. I never did that in the U.S. Can you? Maybe you can, I don't know, but I really doubt it. I mean, have you tried to wire transfer money from any bank in the U.S. lately? It's painful, bureaucratic, expensive, slow, and based on the filling out of very analog paper forms with the information then being keyed into a compute. It's dumb, actually. I just transferred a gallon of cash through three banks to Japan, and I think it would have been easier to ship gold across the ocean. Anyway, for deposits and fees to rent apartments I prefer to use a simple check. But this is Japan, and I've yet to see a check. Are there any? That wire transfer from the ATM was really slick, though, I must say. That's going to come in handy. Very cool.
Ok, so now we have an apartment. It took just over a week, which really ties things up because as I mentioned several things are dependent on that address. So, we filed for everything else immediately and held our breath. Next we had to buy a stove, a refrigerator, a washer, etc. Again, I knew this going in but experiencing it is another game altogether. Apartments here are basically walls and ceilings and rooms with gas, water, and power connections. You bring in your own stove (no ovens around here), a heater for the winter, an air conditioner for summer (though we lucked out and our apt came with one), a refrigerator for your food, ceiling lights so you can see, and a washer for your cloths. The washers here are cool. All the apartments have connections in the bathrooms for these compact washers. Very cool. But buying all this stuff all at the same time is expensive, and the prices here in Japan are higher than I've ever seen anywhere I've lived, and I've lived in some pretty expensive places -- New York, Boston, San Francisco. I keep hearing this place has been in a recession. Ha. What a joke. I see everything but a recession here.
I suppose we'll look into cable TV, but I'm less concerned about that. I don't watch much TV, and it's kinda nice be away from the extremism of the U.S. media. A little quite for a little while will be nice. But I do need Internet access, though. Cable or DSL is fine, but there's no need to live in the dark ages of technology because I just discovered that I have fiber right into my building. How freaking cool is that? In reality, I don't care. I don't need those speeds, but I do find it interesting that fiber for my computer is built in and more than affordable, but I have to go out and buy refrigerator. Maybe it makes sense ... they provide the network and you provide the access device. They've taken it to all new levels, though.
So, there you have it. My apartment adventure. The abridged version, obviously. But seriously, although the bureaucracy was a bummer, the people were all great. Their efficiency belies and transcends what I see (perhaps incorrectly) as bureaucracy. The guy at the first agency who showed us the apartments was very nice and exceedingly hard working, and each apartment was absolutely spotless. He even brought slippers for us to use to walk inside and look at each place. The slippers were too small for me, so I just took my sneakers off and walked in my socks, but it's the thought that counts. I don't know about you, but I've never moved into a clean apartment in my life. I've always had to clean. With our apartment here, though, and all the ones we looked at, it wouldn't be possible to clean any further. That was a really, really nice touch.
Oh, I still can't get mail because my address hasn't been confirmed. You believe that? After all this to get an address and the post office hasn't confirmed our address. And, no, I don't know what means. But it doesn't matter much because the post office in San Francisco has never been capable of forwarding or holding my mail. Every trip they mess it up. Now, this is a pretty long trip -- life -- so we'll have to see how they perform. So, I have no clue where my mail is. Probably where my stuff is -- floating out on the Pacific someplace.
Everything new every day. It's totally exhausting. But very exciting at the same time.
Posted by venky on July 29, 2006 at 06:23 PM JST #
Posted by Jim Grisanzio on July 29, 2006 at 10:20 PM JST #
Posted by Olivier on July 30, 2006 at 05:46 AM JST #
Posted by stevel on July 30, 2006 at 08:04 AM JST #
Posted by Jim Grisanzio on July 30, 2006 at 08:05 AM JST #
Posted by Jim Grisanzio on July 30, 2006 at 08:10 AM JST #
I lived in Japan from late 1991 to mid 1993. Your comment on recession reminded me of things that period, when Japan was in a fairly strong recession. 3% unemployment in Japan is considered a bad economy, because unemployment is typically very low. At the time in Japan's economy full employment would have been almost 100%, unlike the U.S., where full employment is about 97%. So 3% unemployement in Japan was actually worse than the 7% unemployment in the U.S. in the same period.
It sounds like the Japanese residential real-estate industry has changed little in 15 years. Another indication of the culture of Japan, just like the employment system. People in the U.S. change residences as frequently as they change cars. If there was more residential real-estate churn in Japan, there would be more competition, and if there was more competition, there would be lower prices.
Posted by Mark on July 31, 2006 at 12:26 AM JST #
Posted by Jim Grisanzio on July 31, 2006 at 07:25 AM JST #
Jim,
Wow, long post...
And no slides :)
You say 15 foreigners in 1 week? I saw 5 in 2 weeks where I was.
Take some rest. You know you're going to have some more fun when your stuff finally arrives, like where to put it all :)
I think the unemployment in the US of 3% represents those people who will simply not work. Adding that to the fact that we have war veterans out and about and they don't, plus a number of people who work but officially don't does to a certain extent explain the discrepancy.
I still envy you.
Posted by Christopher Mahan on August 01, 2006 at 02:01 AM JST #
Howdy Jim - regarding JAPANESE UNEMPLOYMENT figures.....
The true unemployment rate in Japan is unfortunately masked by statistical manipulation (just as in the U.S.), and the use of "shadow workers" or contract labor. In many industries the "salaryman" is merely a "project manager" with no real technical expertise and all the real work is done by contractors who work on a daily basis "at the whim of the corporation" - the "shadow worker".
In the "good old days" when termination was considered such a disgrace that sepuku was a real possibility, the corporation would put the employee in an empty office with an empty desk and nothing to do but read the newspaper all day (unless he chose to leave on his own). But the days of "guaranteed permanent employment" for the salaryman are long gone.
Further, at the level of manual labor, there have been otherwise unreported incidents of 50-75% unemployment in certain towns with numerous homeless (I see you have photos of tent-dwellers under a bridge) followed by unreported riots for basic rights, followed by unreported police round-ups and crack-downs :-(
as an aside, these things are very difficult to follow if one doesn't read Kanji and the locals are not inclined to publicize them globally. Not to mention various incidents in China and the censorship involved.
Posted by sdr on December 06, 2008 at 03:15 AM JST #
Any Lifestyle! Any Location! Any Budget!
Posted by Ithaca-rentals on June 02, 2009 at 07:36 PM JST #