Renting a House in Japan

In November 2025, I completed my second move in Japan. This time, there were more twists and turns than the first. I gained a deeper understanding of Japan's rental system and would like to share my experience.

The primary goal of my first rental was simply to have a place to live, as I quickly moved out of my Chinese colleague's house in rural Saitama. With a sense of adventure, I wanted to try renting a place through a Japanese agent using my limited Japanese, so I wasn't very picky about the property. In the end, I managed to rent a fairly decent place, a newly built apartment completed in May 2023, and became one of the first residents. The facilities were brand new, with a heated toilet seat, free broadband internet, and a garbage room where I could dispose of trash anytime, as long as I sorted it properly. However, its downside was that it was located in Katsushika Ward, "Horikiri Shobu-en," which is somewhat remote in the northeast of Tokyo, and I wasn't very satisfied with the location. At that time, I was working in Shinjuku, northwest Tokyo, and my daily commute took 50 minutes by train one way, which was quite exhausting.

This time, I decided not to make any compromises and insisted on achieving a satisfactory balance in terms of price, location, and layout. Therefore, I found a Chinese agent, and communication was no longer a barrier, allowing me to focus on selecting properties.

As many may know, all housing prices in Japan are public, and real estate agents only earn service fees. However, there were several people applying for the property through a guarantee company (see "First Encounter with Japan"). This information is also public. The guarantee company reviews candidates in the order of submission. If someone has already applied, that house is basically theirs. The probability of a guarantee company rejecting someone is very low. If they do reject, the next person in line is automatically reviewed.

For example, I was interested in a property near the Yamanote Line's Tabata Station and said I would consider it. After just one night of consideration, the next day the system showed that someone had already submitted an application for that property. The agent told me to look at others, as it was highly likely that the house was already taken.

This seemingly transparent system led me to encounter a pitfall, forcing me to recalibrate my understanding based on real-life lessons. I applied for a property in Bunkyo Ward, near Suidobashi. It was a 17-minute train ride to Ueno, 17 minutes to Ikebukuro, 15 minutes to Akihabara, 30 minutes to Shibuya, and a 20-minute walk to the Imperial Palace. The location was excellent, and the only downside was that the property was a bit old, but after investigation, I found that its earthquake resistance rating was fine. At that time, there were no other applicants, and it felt like a great find; even the agent congratulated me on securing it. I was excited and quickly submitted my application. During that time, I thought I would soon be moving from Katsushika to Bunkyo, and I even mentioned it to my Japanese colleagues during lunch, boasting about my upcoming move to Suidobashi.

However, after waiting for more than a week without any response, the agent also found it strange. But everyone believed that since the guarantee company reviewed applications in order, there should be no problem.

Two weeks later, the property company informed the agent that my application had been "dropped." It dawned on me that the property company knew their house was highly cost-effective and in demand, so they deliberately held back the applicant's information to collect more applications and then choose the best one. My information as a foreigner must have been overshadowed. If my application had gone to the guarantee company, it would have been almost mine, but my information was stuck with the property company and never reached the guarantee company. I wasted two weeks for nothing, and I had already agreed on a move-out date with the guarantee company of my current residence, which made the timeline tight. The agent then arranged for an additional person to help me select properties. He had been in the industry for many years and said it was his first time encountering such a situation.

I once saw a Chinese blogger who had lived in Japan for many years and whose wife was Japanese, discussing his experience helping Chinese students find housing in Tokyo. The Japanese agent told him that a certain property was available, only to later say it was no longer available as it had been rented out. This blogger was furious. After a while, they said the property was available again, which made the blogger even angrier, cursing the decline of the Japanese service industry. I suspect his situation was similar to mine, where the agent couldn't distinguish between the guarantee company's review and the property company's review, as well as the extremely rare case where other candidates entered the guarantee company but were rejected.

Earlier, I mentioned moving out, so I will also share my experience with that. First, I found my original rental contract and contacted the guarantee company at that time. They told me they no longer managed my rental contract and mockingly said they wouldn't respond to anything I sent. Hearing this complaint, I recalled receiving a document stating that my house had been sold to an elderly lady, but I thought it was just a notification and put it away. I dug that document out again and realized I had indeed made a mistake. It turned out that this old document was not just a notification but a contract that required my signature to be sent back, even though I was just a tenant. I don't know if this transaction fell through because of me, but I must have been seen as a bad asset, leading them to transfer my rental contract to another guarantee company. I apologized to the guarantee company for my ignorance and asked which company I should contact for moving out, but to my surprise, no matter how I inquired, they stopped responding. They might not have kept records or remembered which company my contract had been sold to, or they might just want to punish me with deliberate silence.

Later, I called the property company and finally learned that my contract was now guaranteed by いえらぶ, and I could apply for moving out on their website. Moving out required agreeing on a meeting date, and the house had to be cleared and restored to its original state before the meeting. On the day of the meeting, I just handed over the keys, and the いえらぶ staff looked around, checked for damages, and ultimately asked me to pay 20,000 yen for restoration fees. I was a bit surprised; although I had kept a cat for a while (see "Rescuing Stray Cats in Tokyo"), and the wallpaper had some peeling, I considered myself very clean and often tidied up, believing I wouldn't lose to any Japanese housewife in terms of cleanliness. Sure enough, a few days later, they emailed me saying they had made a mistake, and I only needed to pay 5,000 yen. They probably initially thought the toilet was broken, but it was just a settings issue.

Finally, let me talk about how I rented a house. First, I told the agent my rental budget and the target stations I wanted to be close to, and the agent provided me with many candidate properties. Next, as a Chinese otaku uncle, I had some places I wanted to frequent if possible: Ueno, Shibuya, Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, and Akihabara. I would check the travel time to these places. Then, as a foreigner, I would also look at the distance from the house to Narita and Haneda airports. Of course, since no one flies every day, this was just a reference to have a rough idea. After selecting suitable locations, I would check other conditions of the properties, such as layout, whether there was a garbage room (if not, I had to strictly wake up early to dispose of trash at designated times and places), whether there was parking, whether it was wooden or concrete (wooden houses are cold in winter and hot in summer), and the year it was built (the two earthquake resistance standards are 1981 and 2000; houses built after 1981 generally won't collapse in major earthquakes).

In the end, I chose a house in Taito Ward. It takes 25 minutes by train to my workplace in Nihonbashi, 20 minutes by bike. It's a 15-minute walk to Ueno Station, a 15-minute walk to Nippori, a 10-minute walk to the Chiyoda Line's Nezu Station, two stops to Akihabara, 30 minutes to Shibuya, 25 minutes to Ikebukuro, and 30 minutes to Shinjuku. To Narita, I can take the Skyliner directly from Nippori, which takes 40 minutes. To Haneda, I first take JR and then the monorail, which takes 45 minutes. On nice days, I ride my luup to work, passing through Akihabara every day. The downside is that it is an old house and does not have a garbage room, but the earthquake resistance is fine. Regarding the garbage disposal issue, after negotiating with the property management, I can throw out trash the next morning after dawn. Moving from a corner of Tokyo to the city center, the rent plus management fees turned out to be about the same as my previous rent, and overall, I am very satisfied.