An American in Asia: His Quest for Cosmic Truth (or at least a Decent Espresso)

 

Tokyo Apartment Hunt
by Jeffrey Studebaker

Originally Published in EyeAi Magazine

I sat before a stack of paper the size of the New York phone book, both yellow and white sections. As I flipped through the pages, eyes straining at the kanji, I dearly hoped my new apartment would be larger than the room I now occupied.

I came sweating through the heat to this real estate agent’s office on a Monday afternoon this Summer after scouring the various English publications of Tokyo for a realtor likely to speak English. More importantly, a realtor who would be familiar with the peculiar problems foreigners face in the search for a home in the most densely populated city in the world. Out of those I talked with I ended up employing two.

Even Japanese friends, at the mention of the apartment hunt, shudder despite the heat with ill memories of apartment lotteries and long train rides to dilapidated huts advertised as “mansions”. There are thousands of people in any particular market and they are all looking for the same good deal you want.
There are some problems you can avoid and some you can’t. In the Tokyo apartment hunt, you usually can’t. And if you do avoid, say, paying the exorbitant key money, there is always a rather unpleasant reason for it. Maybe the windows on the little map of the room don’t actually exist. And 99.9 percent of landlords require key money, so any place that doesn’t require it will be full of the .1% of the population who doesn’t want to pay it. That may be good or bad depending on who you like to hang out with.

Briefly, here is a list of the things you really can’t avoid:
1)Key Money (reikin)
This is a hold-over from the days after WW2, when living space was scarce and people used to bribe landlords to be assured of acquiring a place. The landlords got really used to that and it became an institution. You will almost always have to pay 2 months rent in key money and you will never see this money again.
2) Deposit (shikikin)
This is another 2 months of rent and you are supposed to get it back if you leave the place in decent shape. Though my informants seem dubious as to whether this ever actually happens, I’m going to be optomistic and pretend I’ll see my money again.
3) Realtor’s Fee
The standard here is 1 month’s rent. You simply can’t meet a landlord without a realtor with you. It’s like a PG movie. Some realtors may ask for ¥10,000 of this up front, to be returned when you sign a lease agreement, or not returned if you don’t. They will call it a consulting fee, but this is not usual.
4) Management Fee (kanri hi)
You may or may not have to pay this. It’s basically a maintenance fee on top of the rent, to be paid monthly.
5) Guarantor (hoshonin)
It doesn’t matter if you are from the US, Australia, Antarctica or were born and raised by wild kogyaru in the heart of Tokyo. Even native Japanese need a guarantor. Many places will accept a trusted friend as your guarantor, if this friend has been working at his job for a few years, has a family and can afford to cover damages should you destroy the place and escape back to Antarctica. But it is much preferable for your company to be your guarantor. Most companies will do this and if yours won’t it needs a stern talking-to.

Before you visit the realtor, even if he can speak English, learn the kanji for the stations you want to live near. Learn the kanji for Management Fee, Key Money and Deposit. The rent will be posted across the page in big, bold numerals, but if you can find these other details without help, it will save a lot of time. And you are more likely to take care over these choices than the realtor is. It’ s your apartment, after all. It’s not as hard as it sounds. Anyway, it gets easier after an hour or so of looking.
Flipping through the pages is actually pretty fun. There is a crazy variety of housing out there. One place I liked actually had the bath in a little hut outside. My realtor wisely dissuaded me from that one. There is a little map of each one showing details down to how many burners are on the stove. Be sure to carefully check the shape of the toilet if you don’t like the traditional hole-in-the-floor model.

Timing is everything. First come first serve. This was the mantra of my realtor. If you find a place you like, be prepared to jump on it immediately. This is why it is imperative to have all the above details covered before visiting the realtor.

My realtor estimated that around 70% of the landlords he talks to do not accept foreigners. This may seem bigoted to people who come from countries who somewhat openly invite the influx of immigrants. But from the landlord’s point of view it makes a bit of sense. We foreigners sometimes leave the country and never come back. Japanese tenants hardly ever do that. Also, Japanese tenants rarely have a party at their home. You may not call three friends, dinner and beer a party, but it is in a Japanese house.

I was nearly through the stack of apartments and on my second iced coffee when a delivery person barged politely in with a bundle of paper. These, my realtor informed me, were newly available places this week. I sighed a couple lungfuls and hunkered down over the new stack.

The kanji was beginning to crawl across the page like little bugs when I found a place which made my heart skip. I added it to the modest pile of 15 places I could stand living in without going broke and the realtor began making the calls. Out of the fifteen, ten were already rented and four did not accept foreigners despite the realtor’s insistence that my Japanese was “pera-pera” (quite an exaggeration). The remaining one was the place of my dreams: affordable, spacious and close to my favorite areas for shopping, drinking and, oh yeah, work.

Suddenly my mild mannered realtor became a man of action. In moments we sucked down the last of our iced coffees and were out the door. We got on the train just as the headache from the cold beverage was beginning to fade.

Hot and sweating once again, we arrived at the office of the realtor who was in charge of renting the place. Most owners actually live on the premises but this one lived somewhere on the coast of the Japan Sea. I was never to meet them, which suited me fine. The new realtor spoke even better English than I did, so I really lucked out. But if that hadn’t been the case, my realtor was prepared to explain the details of the rental contract.

On viewing the rooms, I immediately agreed to rent. At this point, the place is usually yours, if no one has done it before you. Again, if you like the place, move quickly. We met a couple of days later to sign the contracts. I handed over the 6 months of rent (2 of key money, 2 of deposit, 1 for the realtor and 1 for this month’s rent). I also paid ¥20,000 for apartment insurance. Spare change compared to the rest. I was painfully aware that I could stay for a year in a Bangkok hotel for the same amount.

My guarantor wanted to meet the owner and realtor of the apartment. This is not usually necessary. They only need his information, assurance that he is a responsible family man and his personal stamp (hanko) and proof of it’s validity. It was, however, nice to have my guarantor there. He hassled them a little over some details of the contract. They weren’t important details, maybe, but now my new landlord knows I have a tough guy on my side.

After this final meeting I walked away with a key in my pocket, light-hearted and fancy-free. I said good-bye to my benefactors and sauntered around the neighborhood like a new king. My grocery store! My local bar! My beer vending machine! Now I just have to find a good moving company.

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