Which is best for you?
Broadly speaking in Japan you can choose to rent or buy, and your can choose a house or a manshon (or apato if you are renting). There are also various minor options, like living in a company dormitory, renting one of the new style maisonette apato, etc.
We’ll come back to rent or buy in a future post, so for now let’s just look at the various options.
Apato
This is probably the bottom of the pole. I haven’t really heard of anyone buying one of these to live in, they tend to be owned by people for the purpose of renting them out. Apato have in the past been badly-constructed, although modern ones are much better.
The main benefit of an apato is that it is cheap.
The disadvantages of apato is that they tend to be colder/hotter than alternatives, tend to be less luxurious, have worse soundproofing, etc. You may have to put up with unpleasant neighbours.
There is a new style of maisonette apato that is becoming more popular (they are sometimes called casita) that is an apato on two floors, sometimes with parking on the first floor.
Manshon
These tend to come in two types: rental manshons, which share some of the characteristics of apato and tend to be cheaply made, and owner manshon (which can also be rented out) which tend to have better insulation, soundproofing, services, etc.
Manshons have lots of extra costs that renters will often have included in their rent and owners will have to pay. These include the service fee (pays for cleaning, security, staff, etc.), the repair fund fee (is saved up and used for repairs and renovations to the common areas of the building), property taxes, parking, some utilities (especially water), etc.
Manshons are basically convenient. Benefits include not having to worry about maintenance, cleaning of common areas, trash rules (our manshon has a garbage shed and we can put out garbage whenever we want -I will miss this so much if we move), dealing with neighbours (we haven’t really had cause to speak to any of ours for the six years we’ve lived here), or dealing with chonaikai (local resident) or similar groups.
If you have a manshon in the middle of the block, it will tend to be warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer than a house or a manshon on the edge of the building.
House
A house allows you more freedom (you don’t have to worry about the person living on the other side of the wall) and you may have a garden or some space between you and your neighbours. Renting a house can be difficult (we’ve tried in the past and run into landlords who wouldn’t rent to foreigners or to individuals -they want to sign a contract with a company) and depending on relative scarcity can be more expensive than an apato or manshon.
If you rent all costs will be included in the rent, but if you own you’ll be responsible for maintenance costs and have to take care of the outside of the house too. This can be expensive if you have to redo the walls or roof every five or ten years. There is also termite inspections/proofing, being expected to join and be active in chonaikai, garbage rules, boundary disputes, property taxes, etc.
Which is best?
Which of these works best for you is going to be a personal decision. Your work situation and commute, family situation, budget, how long you are planning to live there, whether you can rent what you want (if you want a house in a certain area, you might have to buy to get it).
I’ve rented apato, a house, a manshon, and bought a manshon. So far the manshon has been the best for us, balancing cost-effectiveness with comfort. We needed the house for a bit when we had all three kids plus others living with us. Now we have two manshons side by side.
How about you? What’s your experience of housing? Anything I missed in this post?
When I arrived in Japan 2004, I lived in a company dormitory for a year. Incredibly cheap, 60k/mo for a 70 sqm place in a mansion-type building. Old-ish but it was in good condition.
Then I rented a house in Ikebukuro 3-chome, designer house, looked cool, wood everywhere but it was 230k/mo. That as OK because there was 2 equally earning people so we split the cost half. Even when it was a new-ish house, it was poorly insulated so summers were darn hot, and winters were cold. So cold that we got an electric heating blanket.
Now my partner then left to greener fields to the southern islands which I really enjoyed to visit a few times per year. Unlimited snorkeling. She lived in a full-Okinawan house, which was hot and humid in the summer and OK in the winter. Goes with the islands though. She paid 80k/mo for the most expensive house in the whole island. Big garden.
While she went there, I moved out because 230k was a tad bit too much for a now in retrospect, quite shitty house. Moved to a proper mansion near Shinagawa overlooking the canals with a proper balcony. Just 2 rooms, definitely a bachelor pad, 75smq, 200k/mo but it was really nice. None of that shitty wallpaper but proper hard wallpaper on concrete, different colour walls (please japan you can do more of this), deep red wood flooring…
But 2 rooms (bedroom and living room) was not enough for a suddenly another woman moving in so we needed something more suitable, but not more expensive.
A friend of ours introduced us to a building at the other side of Shinagawa but still 3 minutes from Yamanote line. We could talk directly to the management company (not a blood-sucking agent) that rents the units straight off from the building. You CAN go through an agent but I would be out of my mind to do it.
The catch doing it this way is that there’s no renewal fee. There was also no key money, the deposit was 1 month. Contract auto-renews so there’s no haggling at that time. Well I lied, there was a key money 23k. They actually put a new lock drum on the table in a package with a pair of blank keys and said this goes to your apartment before you move in. First time ever in japan I see key money going where it’s supposed to and it’s correctly priced. Also, the place was under renovation when we viewed it. New kitchen and walls, quite comfy. Same 75 sqm but now with 3 bedrooms.
So now I’m sitting there, working from home, and the wife is doing her stuff. We both have our own ‘offices’ thankfully.
Next, and the hopefully final step, is to purchase about 1000-2000sqm of land in the countryside (I’ve been looking for a few years, it’s about 10M), build a passive house for 50M, and have a proper garden and no neighbours (but still fast internets!). And about 1h to Tokyo for weekly work meetings.
If things get boring, sell/Airbnb the house and buy a blue-water cruiser 🙂
Thanks, TL! That’s really interesting. In fact, I think I might do another post in the style of your comment…
LOVE the endgame 🙂
Thanks for posting this, Ben.
I think about this constantly. I like where we rent (apartment) but it’s a 1hr commute to work. The area around my work is nice enough, but expensive to buy or rent (popular with commuters to Shibuya) and I don’t like it as much as where we rent.
I think we will end up moving close to my work; I ask myself if I really want to be wasting two hours a day on trains for the next 30 years, and the answer is always no!
We won’t be doing anything before the Olympics, though. Prices seem to be incredibly inflated here in Kanagawa, so we’ll wait to see what happens when all the construction is finished.
Eeek. My commute is 30m (train/car) or 50m (cycle) and it’s far too long for my liking…
I definitely find that the shorter the commute, the better the QoL. Ideally I’d like to live upstairs from work, or maybe across the street 😉
Totally agree!
I used to be 4km away…car, bike, walk…anything was easy.
Quality of life should never be underrated!
Pleased to say that from mid-December I’ll be living 2.5km from work.
We made the decision very quickly after my wife had a minor medical emergency and asked me to come home to take her to hospital and look after our daughter. Because both train lines I catch were having troubles that morning, the 1hr commute took 1hr 40mins to get home – I’m scared to think what might have happened had it been more serious.
Anyway, the costs associated with moving into another rental property will take up a fair bit of the winter bonus, but it’s a small price for peace of mind and better quality of life!
Congratulations! 2.5km is ten minutes on a bicycle, or 40 on foot. Well worth the moving cost (what’s your time worth?).
When we bought, we asked our architect friend for advice, and he came with us to visit places. He told us not to waste our time with a house; they need to be rebuilt ever 20-30 years. Manshons have the best value overall. We’re very happy where we are now. It’s a newer place, so super quiet. It’s great got windows on three sides, so more of a homey feel. We face SE, so it is cooler in summer compared to the condos that face west!! I’ll add that there’s is a big difference between smaller manshon complexes (50 units or fewer) and the huge manshon complexes. If you don’t want to know your neighbors, the bigger ones are maybe better. We’re in a smaller one where we have gotten to know our neighbors and sometimes have activities together like mochi pounding! I also have 2 possible cat sitters!
Thanks, Mary! Sounds like you have a good deal 🙂
I’m always curious about what happens to manshons at the end of their life -I think they might be rebuilt using the renovation funds plus contributions from each owner but need to look into it…
If you have a good association—which we do— they plan for that. We paid slightly more each month for the major refurbishing/maintainable that needed to be done. As for rebuilding, by the time ours needs to be rebuilt, I’ll probably no longer be alive!
I know that there were major problems with damaged manshons after the Kobe earthquake. People on fixed incomes couldn’t afford what it would take to rebuild. I guess they’d have to sell in distress.
Hello,
Another option in the rental category (and maybe only available in cities) is Kodan apartments which are nowadays called UR apartments.
These are a kind of public housing and range from old buildings which will have been renovated to modern high rises near Tokyo Bay. The advantages over private sector rentals are (1) no key money needed, (2) no guarantor needed), and (3) fair and transparent handling of deposits when one leaves.
I have lived in UR in Osaka and now Tokyo for almost 10 years and highly recommend people to, at least, look into UR as an option.
MJC
Have only heard good things about UR, but no personal experience 🙂
I have mentioned this to our host but I will put here as well. Its invaluable to get a 2nd opinion so you should reach out to Derrek Buston here in Shizuoka. He has projects in Kanagawa and will probably expand elsewhere soon. http://www.westcoastdesign.co.jp/ He has a 2nd degree architects license and like me feels that construction methods in Japan are woefully inadequate. He builds houses to last more than the standard 20 or so years currently being used.
It really has us shaking our heads, when putting down significant sums of money on a 35 year mortgage for the land, then forking over more money for a house that will last 20 years ? Poor asset management in my view. Then again with earthquakes, floods, typhoons perhaps its wise not to sink too much into a house… Regardless its easy to pick up the phone and give Derrek a call.
Having said that and not wanting to sound like I am pimping his shop (which I am doing slightly) I also wanted to thank our host for pertinent posts like this one. Its invaluable for foreigners like us to have a place where we can share info, comisserate and otherwise network.
Since we have our own shop and I don’t have a commute I cannot relate to the decision making behind a 30 JR commute but it sounds mostly an unpleasant experience. Moving closer to the job is probably worth the extra man it will cost you. But to each his or her own I suppose.
Further I think it important to mention that one needs to view looking for a house or mansion as another job. The more places you see, the better the end result. If we do a half assed job of it, then we should expect less than stellar results. At least thats my view of it and since we are going to spend a disproportionate amount of time in our place it is well worth the initial time sink to find the best possible place.
We followed a few simple methods to arrive at our final decision.
1. Never compromise.
2. Never compromise
and 3 you guessed it Never compromise
Wife and I each made a separate list of the things we would not compromise about.
So we agreed to never live on the ground floor. Floods alone made this one a no brainer and another reason we did not buy a house.
Top floor is best. No upstairs neighbors, pets or kids or sounds from above.
Walking distance to Supermarket and public transport
Bedroom near entrance as my wife is a massage therapist and needed the room for her business.
Good or best primary school neighborhoods. Although we don’t have children, these places have more engaged community, are cleaner and safer. Also later if we do move it should be easier to rent it out to a family.
Not to live on a main road.
Building built after the upgrade in the code.
Used is better than new.
End unit is better than a middle one as less neighbors is much quieter.
We did include a house option as a school location with different parameters but that is a separate issue.
I’d say we looked an average of 2.5 places a week for over 6 months. We also ended changing our agency 3 times as the first 2 did a poor job of it.
The one thing I wish I had paid more attention to is the nature of the politics of decision making in our current building. There was a significant debt and some of the decisions made by the “leader” were questionable at best. Be aware when signing a contract that the associated mansion debt comes with it.
Great stuff Paul.
I had a couple of chats with Derrek. Very nice bloke, helpful and not pushy at all.
Also any passive house architect/builder in Japan can build a proper house that’ll last a few generations, not just your friend 🙂 Although I’m probably going to give him a call in a year or two. Never hurts. If he knows how to design and knows a crew that can actually build a passive house.l
http://passivehouse-japan.org/
Also there are other producers like Swedish House and what RetireJapan mentioned in his articles that can build house that’ll last a generation or two.
Mind you, my friends just built a catalog-y house in Tokyo with Sumitomo, and they gave 60 year guarantee on the frame. Way more than what the shitty average builders do here.
I agree. A passive house is indeed a great option. I think ultimately its going to boil down to the relative costs versus benefit analysis.
Also for the record I wouldn’t call Derrek a “friend” rather a reliable acquaintance.
A catalog house with a 60 year time frame ? Can you possible share the cost of that puppy ? # of Tsubo, cost per tsubo, energy systems etc ?
One of the last things I was fortunate enough to do before I moved to Japan was to help my friend build a passive house in Oakland California. The sheer volume of documentation and specs that had to be completed was unreal.
We installed a full solar array on the roof with a passive water heating system, that cycled the warm water from the roof down under the floor panels at night. The house was also raised on its foundations and a new floor was put in to support a tenant. All in all it was a daunting task but well worth doing. The day he flipped the switch and PG&E meter went backwards was fantastic.
I had a dream at one time to do that here in Shizuoka, but reality soon reared its ugly head as the costs, documentation and payback were marginal at best. Not to mention the ever increasing taxation issues going forward.
Wish I had it but glad I don’t kinda feeling.
Will check out the passive website
cheers
Paul
120sqm or close, 27M JPY (land is on different loan), and the normal utilities what you get on Tokyo.
Sumitomo had ‘madohoudai’ campaign going at the time, so they took all the windows (double, insulated so aluminium outside but insulation between) they could get 🙂
He also documented the whole thing here:
http://lundman.net/wiki/index.php/Tokyo_house
We spent a while looking at both apartments and secondhand houses before our father-in-law said he’d give us some land that is about 1 minutes walk away from where my wife and I both work. To top it off my brother-in-law is a carpenter/house builder so built it for us too.
With the money saved on the land we were able to spend a bit more on the quality of construction and have a smaller mortgage too. We also added solar panels which we probably wouldn’t have done otherwise. The only downside is that it’s near a busy road but the sound insulation is pretty good.
I can see the benefits and drawbacks of both apartments and houses but as I think Ben has mentioned elsewhere there’s something about the improvement in quality of life you get from having your own house and (small) garden that I find appealing. But there’s no way I would have bought one of those prebuilt cheap houses that seem to be popping up everywhere. Besides it was great to sit down with a blank sheet of paper and actually design a house from scratch.
The building company we used (that my brother-in-law freelances with) is here. It’s based just outside Nagoya.
http://www.koei-juken.co.jp/mob/