I found an apartment!!!

Apartment hunting is really crazy here. Basically, you have to go to a real estate agent to even find what's on the market. Landlords almost ever rent directly, they always go through a real estate company. So you go to a real estate company, usually chosen by the sampling of apartment floor plans they have out front, although one agent said that some agencies will put our fake ones to attract customers, so pretty much any big one will do. There are two types of agencies; small local ones that the landlords list with, and then other agencies that collect thousands of floor plans from the smaller agencies. Since it's usually harder for the smaller agencies to find tenants, and harder for prospective tenants to find the apartment they are looking for, the secondary agencies are more convenient.

The thing that delayed me from looking before was that I didn't have a guarantor. In Japan, everyone has to have someone to cosign the lease. There are not background or credit checks that can exempt you from this requirement in japan, though there are a few, very rare landlords that will rent to someone without a guarantor, but the rents are generally higher.

Last week, while at my last lesson with the Dentist and his daughter, I told them about my new job, and and how I needed to start looking for an apartment, but that I didn't have a guarantor, and he agreed to be my guarantor. (Yeah!) So on Thursday, the very next day, I headed up to Kitijoji to start apartment hunting. I spent a few hours in one place, whose site I had searched on the web, and flipped through their books. I had expected them to be different; since I was able to search through what they had on the web, I expected that they'd have everything organized electronically, but they were no different from the rest. When you walk in, someone will sit you down, have you fill out a registration sheet with details about yourself and what you are looking for in an apartment. Then they pull out a book of copies of floor plans and you start flipping. I probably flipped through an entire box of paper in the three agencies that I went to. Meanwhile, the agent uses some other resources that they have to find other apartments that fit your description that they don't have in their files yet. If you find some that you are interested in, then they will take you to see them. The agency in Kichijoji had a car, so they drove me to each place, but the Shnjuku agency didn't have a car, (after all, it's Shinjuku, so it would have taken 2 hours to navigate the traffic to where the apartments were) so we took the train (20 minutes).

The first agency I went to was able to find one apartment that I was looking for, and it was really great except that it was a half hour walk to the train station. The second agency hadn't found anything as of yesterday afternoon, but the Shinjuku agency was really on the ball, and found a couple by yesterday morning, so I canceled my appointments with the first two and went to look at apartments.

The ones were not to my liking and I was about ready to lower my standards when we hit the last one. This is the one I decided to get. It was about $20 a month over the budget I had set for myself, but I think it will be worth it. It's in a reinforced concrete building which will be less susceptible to earth quake damage than the wood construction that most buildings are made of. It also has the bath and toilet separate, which was one of my main requirements, and the biggest obstacle to finding an apartment in my price range. People who haven't been to Japan may not understand the "bath toilet separate concept. Basically, the bathroom is just that; a bathroom. The toilet is in a separate room. You may not understand unless you see it, but it's just so much better. The apartment also has a large loft, which was the other difficult requirement I had. My image was to put my bed in the loft, and use the main room for living. This loft may just be just too small for my bed though; my bed it 120cm wide, and the loft is 119.5 cm wide. The difference is so small that I'm just going to shave that much off the side of my be to make it work. I think that from about 5cm off the floor, it's a full 120cm, so I'll just bevel the feet and it should work.

The apartment is also in a great town. Koenji is only 20 minutes from work, and 160yen! Where I live now, it costs at least 190 yen to get to a station that is even half the size of Koenji. I'll also have a train pass that will take me to Shinjuku to work and Shinjuku for free since my school will pay for it. Yea!!!

It's going to be much different living up there. I wont have cherry blossom petals falling past my window for a week during the spring (as they are now), but the apartment is far enough from the station that I wont hear trains all day. I'll also be much closer to shops and food (lots of food!) and spend so much less on transportation that it will probably pay for itself.

I'll get a floor plan up as soon as I can get them to fax it to me.