This will be a short post because halfway during my research, I found the most holistic guide, that really covers all grounds and makes my series look elementary. Do check the SSAJ’s Guide here.
Accommodations
Waseda was nice enough to provide a list of hostels and homestays for students. For homestays like homii.jp, they are available for non-students as well! Some even gave discounts in rental if you were to give English tuition. The discounts can add up to 10,000 JPY or 70 USD.
Social Residences
There are share houses with activities, or social residences, as they call it where it is primarily geared at foreign students and foreigners. The concept is that there are regular activities for foreigners and Japanese to interact while living together. Here are some recommendations by Waseda which I thought were pretty interesting.
An interesting observation when researching was that for rooms that were above 90,000 JPY or 623 USD a month, the tenants were usually Europeans or Americans (based on the nationalities listed here on Borderless House listings)! I do hear from my friends who are planning to move to London, Paris or New York that rental is indeed a killer. Hence, the upper-end of the pricing here (100,000 JPY or 700 USD) is indeed much better than the rates the Europeans or Americans are used to.
My search for the roof above my head
Personally, I decided to search for share houses using hituji.jp or ひつじ (hi-tsu-ji which means sheep in Japanese, hence the 🐑 icon)! Compared to the rental market in my home country, Singapore, the rates were much more affordable.
The site was very user-friendly, and standardised, so it was easy to find the information. After searching for a while, there are these key questions I had:
If the housing allows for foreigners
If so, what are the documents required (elaboration below)
Is it a female-only share house
What amenities is it near to
What are the nearest stations
What are the rules in terms of housekeeping, friends sleepover, smoking, etc.
Requirements for foreigners to rent (Elaboration)
This is exceptionally important. Areas near Shinjuku or Shibuya do allow for English-speaking foreigners. Some do require at least a basic conversational Japanese level of the tenant.
In terms of documents, some do only require a visa, some do require a visa with a resident card. Some do request for an additional emergency contact (in Japan).
I was planning to move into a share house with a friend, so we both had requirements when searching for a share house. We then put it together in a matrix to help us with the planning.
scrapped the site for information via =exportxml function
I wanted to find a place that was 45 min or less to Waseda University, with less than 300 JPY commute fee (on-way). My friend wanted a room with more than 7m2 (as she said you can really go crazy), along with house managers allowing for sleepovers (if we have friends visiting).
How to move your belongings over
For myself, thankfully I did not have much to carry over. Even before I flew off, I walked around to ask my colleagues, with my manager just stating that all I need is “(my) passport and a credit card”. For students, if you are flying with Singapore Airlines, they have special deals for students only, with special upgrades.
Unfortunately for me, I booked before I got my student ID card, hence was not able to get any special discounts. Instead, I called customer support to request if I can get an upgrade in just my baggage allowance since I did not get any student privileges and used an official letter by the school as evidence.
They said “yes! Add 15kg!” (definitely paraphrased)
Hence, I brought one big and one small luggage and honestly it was still manageable for me to carry it to the airport limousine (read: bus) to Shinjuku. However, if you are having difficulties, I know of friends who used the option to send the baggage from the airport to anywhere (same-day delivery). It is pretty inexpensive as well.
Dog not included
My personal experience
Just to share, I could not confirm a location before flying over because the place I was very interested in was handled by a real estate company (that dealt with entire rental apartments). Additionally, the place did not have a history of renting to foreigners, so it might be new for both the agents and owners. They required a lot more paperwork than usual from what I was told.
I did have back-up options that allowed for fast move-in and had experience dealing with english-speaking tenants. However, most are small rooms (about 7m2 and feels a lil’ claustrophobic) but the location is fantastic! Compared to Singapore rental prices, Tokyo’s rental prices are reasonable.
Hope this helps, and see you in the last post on bank account creation, phone plan application and others!