Hello! Welcome to part two of my series about moving in Japan
Today's topic is: Key Japanese real estate terms explained. As I mentioned in
part one which if you haven't already watch go and check that out first!
I recommend it for you to build a list of requirements so you have a better
understanding of what needs and wants you have for your home and also what area
or areas you're interested in. Once you have that checklist you can approach
Japanese real estate agents and get started that way. Alternatively I
actually found it easier to just browse for properties online
The three main websites that I used were Suumo, Homes and Mitsui no Rehouse.
Links to these are in the description box below.
So let's use homes as an example.
Here is their home page. I have my Google translated to English for ease of use.
To start let's scroll down and choose rent. And select your area. Not sure why
this hasn't been translated but you can choose the area here or by train line
map and other conditions I'm actually just going to go with train line today
and Tokyo and here all your train route options. Check whatever is applicable to
you. Let's go with Yamanote. Now on this page is where you narrow down your
search even more. So this one are all the train stations that's along the route or
routes that you selected and since Ikebukuro jumped out at me first I'm
going to choose that one and we've got 1593 search results at the moment but of
course that number will drop once we put in these other conditions so the first
one here is rent; how much can you afford? Put that in your minimum and maximum
amount in yen. Sometimes some places may also offer some special incentives to
try and attract more potential tenants by getting rid of some fees like admin
fee or no key money no security deposit etc so let's just pause here and I will
explain some of these fees to you.
Now this is not an exhaustive list but I
will cover the main ones that you're likely to come across. First key money. This is
basically a gratitude payment to your landlord that's worth about one or two
months rent it is non-refundable and can feel like
you're giving your hard earnt money away for free so if you really don't want to
pay this fee there are other options available for example you might want to
rent through a company called UR Chintai
However gains in one area might mean sacrifices in another so you really just
need to weigh up your options next security deposit this is a one-time fee
and it's also worth about one or two months rent however this one is
refundable when you vacate the property given that it's not damaged or anything
okay agent fee this is money paid to your real estate agent and is no more than
one month worth of rent you may also need a guarantor which is a person or
company who will act as your insurance and promise to cover any cost that you
don't should you say suddenly flee the country or disappear now when I first
came to Japan I was lucky because my workplace actually acted as my guarantor
so I didn't have to worry about finding one so definitely check with your
workplace or educational institute first to see if they can do that for you
otherwise you can go through a guarantor company which is what I'm doing at the
moment with my current place again the process was made easier because
there was...my agent had a guarantor company that they're connected with and
so I just went with their recommendation next insurance this will vary depending
on what insurance you get currently my insurance for my place is nine thousand
two hundred and fifty yen per year and that covers things like damages from
strong wind fire water etc and of course there's the monthly rent and maintenance
fee usually the maintenance fee is displayed as a combined price with the
rent when you're searching now let's talk about these involved at the end of
your lease term or when you terminate a contract generally these terms in Japan
are two years that means at the end of this period if you want to renew your
contract you may need to pay a renewal fee and also your guarantor and
insurance fees again renewal fee is like key money it's worth about
one or two months rent and it's non-refundable so again if you want to
avoid paying this fee there are other options available like renting through
companies like UR Chintai so you just need to do your research now you
can choose to end your contract within the lease period if you'd like so you're
not locked into two years however the cleaning fee and any repair cost
would still be the same as if you terminate it at the end of your lease
period the cleaning fee for my previous apartment was ridiculously high it was
one hundred and one thousand yen I asked a lot of my colleagues and this
definitely does not seem like the norm so I definitely made sure to check that
be very clearly for my current place which thankfully is not nearly as high
as that okay now I just wanted to give you a few other expenses to consider
that I forgot to mention in my last video make sure you also factor into
your budget things like removalist fee, groceries
utilities commute mobile phone furniture home appliances and many of the
miscellaneous things that you need for your home and living alright back to the
website. Condition number two occupied area how big do you want your
home to be you can put in your minimum and your maximum in square meters and
then underneath here floor plan is what kind of layout are you after now ldk
stands for living dining kitchen here is an example of a one ldk apartment and 1k
2DK, 2LDK
and you get the point
okay walking
distance from the station or stations you selected previously unspecified this
means you don't have a preference and if you do then this is where you put put it
in and then same as building age if you don't have a preference about how old
the building is and leave this checked otherwise choose another option building
structure these three are the main ones that I came across during my search I
personally prefer a reinforcement system and I'm also okay with steel frame but
definitely do your research about the different construction materials and
popular preference conditions so by bus slash toilet I think this may just be
a bad translation but from memory this may be the option to choose having
a separate toilet to shower area so some homes have them in the same room like
this and others have them separated like this okay second floor or more in Japan
you should bear in mind that second floor actually means level one and first
floor is actually ground level indoor washing machine place okay so I learnt
this recently some homes in Japan I'm not sure if maybe it's just the older
one because when I went to my colleagues home last week she lives in a building
that's I think it was built in the 1980s and her washing machine facilities were actually
outside on her balcony whereas my place is a newer building and there's a
specific spot for the washing machine inside so that's what that means
air conditioner not every home has air conditioners installed so a lot do but
you just need to keep an eye out because that would be an additional cost if you
do want air conditioner and also some places maybe they were only have it in
one room and not another one and that's also something you
should look out for so these are all pretty self-explanatory auto lock is the
security door so do you need a key or a code to get into the building down here
are more specific conditions now I don't really think it's necessary to tick
these because honestly the more you take the less options you're going to
have if any left at all so I'm just going to scroll back up and just put in
some conditions to show you as an example since Ikebukuro's an
inexpensive area let's go with a higher budget fifty man a month five
hundred thousand yen and I don't want any smaller than forty five square
meters watch that number go down I want 1LDK or 2LDK floor plan and
then I'm just one two three awesome okay station I don't need to be too close to
the station there yes I'll just leave that unspecified and age I want within
twenty years and building structures let's leave that blank and I'll leave
these blank too okay so I've got eighty options here okay so here is the search
results page on this side is just a picture of the building from the outside
and some more specific, just little snippets of information about that particular
property we've got the rent and the address how far it is from the station
and what station size and so you really just need to go through these and maybe
the certain buildings that look of it might jump out at you or the conditions
particularly attractive so take your time looking and browsing just going to
choose the first one as an example so for this apartment the monthly rent is
one hundred and fifty eight thousand yen this three thousand yen here thing is
just telling you how much the monthly maintenance fee is
and that should already be included in this figure but of course check anything
that you are uncertain about with your agents the key money oh the deposit is
one month and the key money is two months that's a lot it's very new finished
in June this year south east facing 47 square meters one ldk floor plan which
looks like this and this should have a look at some other photos so this is the
spot for your washing machine ok this is a very typical looking Japanese
bathroom we've got a separate bath tub and shower area because a lot of people
a lot of Japanese people like to wash themselves and make themselves all clean
first before hopping into the bath this here is a removable cover for
the bathtub and now here is another example of a toilet that's separate from
the shower this here is other toilet seats that wear this like this thing
that comes out and then it sprays water so it can cleanse your bottom if you
want I don't often use I have one in my home but I don't really use it that much
and okay let's just scroll down here so here's some more information about the
property like building structure what floor it's on out of how many in total
in the building how long the contract period is and how much you'll cost you
if you want to renew after that period and just other information how close it
is to different schools or amenities and really take time to look at all of these
and for me when I was looking I had a Google Doc where I just collated all my
information and research so it was easy it's in one spot and I made notes as I
was searching because then it was easier to actually remember things about each
property because after a while everything kind of just you get all
confused about what you've seen and where it was and what specific home or
what link you wanted so good planning really helps you in the long run okay so
if you are interested in the property here are the contact details for the
people you will need to contact to ask more questions or to arrange an
inspection if you wish alright so that is a run through of what to expect when
searching for Japanese properties and some key terms that you'll come across
thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next video bye!