When thinking of moving into another country, one of the first things to do is finding your home. Here is some simple tips to find a place to live in Japan (Tokyo area).
Decide your budget
Before you start looking at any rental home/room information websites, you have to decide how much you wanna pay at the maximum for rents. Here is market price of 1LDK in Tokyo 23 wards:
(WILL INSERT A CHART)
It is generally said you should not spend more than 30% of your income for rents. Just for your reference, the average monthly salary of a new worker with a degree is JPY160,000-170,000 after tax. So, in this case, JPY 48,000-51,000 is a good budget.
My first rent was in Kanagawa prefecture, JPY62,000/month where it takes 26mins to Shibuya by trains. The company I worked for paid rent allowance, so it was affordable for me.
Understand your priority
Do you want your house to be located as close to your workplace as possible?
Do you mind living in an old as house or a real tiny room if it is cheap and convenient?
How far can you bear to walk to your home from the nearest station?
Do you want to own pets?
You have to know what is important to you to decide your new home.
For example, I almost always use trains because I do not own a car, and I hate getting squished in a train in the morning, so my first priority is train lines I will be using. I research the congestion rate of each train line and avoid busy train lines.
Search online
Now, it is time to look up on the Internet.
If you can read Japanese, websites below might help you:
Suumo: https://suumo.jp
at home: https://www.athome.co.jp
However, even though you find a nice place that you would like to move in, they will often ask you to find a guarantor in many cases.
Japanese people ask their parents to become one in general, but it might be hard for foreigners to find someone who can be a guarantor.
In such case, you can use a company that can be your guarantor, but the initial cost will be much higher because of the deposit paid to use the company.
There are some (but not many) rents that a guarantor is not required. In that way, your choices could be limited.
You may as well ask real estate agencies your desirable conditions in the first place. (You do not talk directly to house/apartment owners in Japan unless the owner is your relatives or such other close relationship.)
Visit a real estate agency
Instead of searching online, you can visit a real estate agency in the area that you would like to live in. Most of real estate information is registered in the database called REINS which real estate companies can only see and they refer to that database to introduce you houses/rooms, so there is not much difference which real estate agent you choose.
Also, there is a share-house finding service that foreigners are welcome:
This service does not require you to provide a guarantor and you can make a 1 month contract for the shortest while normal rents’ contracts are for 2 years.
Making a flat mate could be a good experience. They could be able to teach you other tips for living in Japan too.
Ending
The most important thing to find a place to live is to decide your preferable conditions including budget, location, size etc.
Then real estate agent staff will help you to find you an ideal house/room.
Don’t rush even if the staff tries to push you. Take your time and go and see the actual place.
Hope you will find a great place to start the new page of your life.
