Realistic Apartment Hunting in Central Tokyo! | What you can get for $1000 | Living in Japan 🇯🇵

hey everyone so recently we started apartment hunting in central Tokyo so in this video we're going to be showing you the three apartments that we saw this week and at the end of the video we will be comparing the size the price and the location of each of them luckily we are in good hands because we have m m this Mika is our friend here in Tokyo and she's also an English-speaking real estate agent she's going to be guiding us through this entire process so if you are looking for a place in Tokyo we definitely recommend contacting mik and we will have her information in the description box down our budget is around 1,000 USD per month which is around 150,000 Yen per month so if you're thinking about moving to Tokyo or if you're just curious to know what you could get with this amount of money then keep on watching without further Ado let's look at the first apartment that we [Music] viewed so this is the front door and immediately what you see is the gon which is a little space where you're supposed to take your shoes off before going into the apartment there's also no built-in shoe storage here so we'll probably have to buy our own but we do like that they have installed these hooks onto the wall so you can hang your bags and your jackets then to the left you have the sink area and I like that there's a mirrored cabinet so it kind of hides all of the bottles and stuff that you'll store inside this is Jeff opening the cabinets and stuff he loves opening all the doors to everything so if you see him doing it you know you know that's just his thing and to the left of the sink you'll find the bathtub and most Japanese apartments and houses have bathtubs cuz it's like a huge part of Japanese lifestyle this bathtub has this digital panel here and it allows you to autofill your bath to a preset amount and temperature it can also reheat the water if it gets cold so that's pretty handy and of course there's a fan for ventilation so things don't get moldy it's pretty standard what you see here to the left of the shower room we have the toilet room it's common in Japan to have a separate room for the toilet and it's also very common to see that there's a bedet since moving to Japan we've like fallen in love with using the days unfortunately this one doesn't have heated toilet seats but that's just me being really picky and it's really not a problem at all also did you know that after you flush clean water will come out of this tap for you to wash your hands and the water that you washed your hands with gets collected and is used for the Nyx flush and it's just a really good use of water so I like it whoever designed it was awesome and as we make our way into the rest of the apartment there's actually a little Nook on the left here and this is a spot for the washing machine actually it has its own little curtain to hide it which I've never seen this before and I think it's like a really thoughtful thing that they added so that's kind of cool and as we continue into the apartment it's so bright I really love it like I saw it in the photos I saw this open bright space and this gorgeous kitchen and it's actually why I came to view it it just caught my eye so this kitchen is like open concept with a huge sink Jeff wanted to show show off this kitchen sink trap thing which is pretty common in Japanese houses um but there's no running water right now so I don't know how he's going to clean his hands after touching it this apartment has a three burner stove which is uncommon for an apartment of this size like it's usually just one or two burners this stove is electric we prefer gas but it's fine it's just a minor thing the ventilation fan up top is really nice and modern however there's no oven but that's just cuz it's not common in Japan in general there is a fish grill which is common cuz people eat a lot of grilled fish but you can also use this to toast bread and stuff and then here's Jeff going through all the cabinets and I noticed there's no drawer for utensils but I don't think that's a huge problem I can just get an extra little counter top back here and along with the fridge which we have to buy by the way because rentals in Japan don't come with fridges next to the kitchen is a storage SL closet area it's actually kind of small like this side looks fine but the other side has kind of a weird shape so we'll probably have to to be really smart with how we utilize the space here and if you guys have any ideas let us know like we're not even sure if we're going to choose this apartment but we're just thinking of like how we would use the space I really love these huge sliding doors that just open up completely to let all the sunlight come through if I'm cooking something that has lots of smells and stuff I could kind of Separate Myself Away from the living area this way out facing yeah and this is just the parking lot so I think there's almost not possibility of like building something in front it's a great view in my opinion look over there yeah I like being able to see far yeah yeah this is the result of healing and if you ever see these little arms with holes it's actually for hanging clothes so there's usually two of them and you put a long pole through the hole and it becomes something that you can hang wet clothes off of and dry but I prefer drying my clothes indoors it just feels cleaner some somehow the balcony is L-shaped and it's a pretty good size like we could fit a little table and chair and sometimes sit out here I think or maybe some plants but actually we don't know like do you guys have any ideas let us know in the comments below please and here's Jeff just taking some quick measurements um which is very important because after you view a place sometimes you actually forget what it was really like so getting it down in numbers is very helpful 2 2 2 m and 20 cm rentals in Japan usually don't include any appliances except for maybe one air conditioner um unless you go for a furnished apartment but those are usually more expensive so definitely like you'll be expected to buy your own washer and fridge and stuff does it usually come with air conditioning yeah usually they come with the the AC but if you have like multiple rooms some rooms have it some rooms don't we also noticed that they installed some really secure hooks onto the walls which is great because usually you shouldn't be making your own holes in the walls to hang things but since these ones are already here then I don't have to worry about it but yeah overall we really like this apartment it's just that the space feels a little bit small so we have to think about how we would use it dining area here and then like desk there and then like bed here and Jeff is just trying to imagine himself working here on the way out we noticed this retro mailbox on the door and it's actually not used anymore cuz there's a proper mail room downstairs but we just thought it was interesting and also there's a lot of bike parking it's actually two-tier bike parking we want to start biking around town and it just seems like a really healthy lifestyle so we are glad that there is room to keep bikes [Music] here this house that we're looking at is yeah it's a house and it's split into multiple floors and each floor is a separate unit and this is on the second floor it's it's really new I think it might be entirely new and the ghon is pretty spacious the entrance way is awesome it's almost like a little mudroom situation with places to hang your jackets put bags um it's got plenty of storage for shoes definitely don't have to worry about buying your own cabinets and stuff here they've got it all ready for you and you notice there's a hole here that's for hanging umbrellas and letting the wet umbrella water kind of drip out and plus there's a huge mirror so you can check and make sure you look good before leaving as you come in it's it's okay like it's bigger than we thought but it's also darker than we thought and if you look out on the balcony you'll see that you are just surrounded by houses and the house next to you is quite close to you and will block out some of the light also it doesn't feel very private cuz you're just next to everyone else's balcony and this is another thing for hanging cloves you can put a pole through these holes and hang wet laundry off of it and the kitchen is definitely not ideal I am actively looking for an open kitchen that looks out into like the living room it just feels much more open but this does have a fish grill and looks like a kind of fancy Fish Grill Too sink is a good size there's storage pretty standard kitchenet in terms of the floor space I'm not really sure how I would arrange Furniture as you look out into the window you're basically looking into someone else's house the closet space is impressive though there's plenty of room to store things let's go back through the entrance area and this is the whole like bathtub bathroom situation we like the you know we look at the Taps and stuff and we like when it's all Chrome and new and shiny with the bathtub it's autofill there's even a little window here which is great for extra ventilation cracking that window open in the steamy shower although we couldn't quite get the window open like Jeff tried to figure fig it out M tried to figure it out and we just failed at the end the toilet room is nice nice and bright High ceilings which makes it feel more spacious and then looking into the sink area the mirrored cabinets are so new and nice looking there's drawers for storage I'm not worried about storage at all in this apartment there's just so much ready and built in it's really great and the washing machine just goes at the bottom left hand corner there there's a spot for it and yeah that's pretty much it for for this apartment and we'll go to the next [Music] one this next apartment that we're going to see is also inside a house and this one is actually on the third floor so you come in through the gangon here next to it there is a walk-in storage space which is a pretty good size there's also this under the floor compartment where you can store non- perishables like pickles and stuff and this is relatively common in Japanese houses next we're going to go up the stairs to the third floor these stairs are private so it's it's just for the tenant that will be living here the stairs felt really long and Steep and narrow actually and it leads up to three doors on the left the furthest door is the toilet room and this is where we came across the first issue which is no day no Day however the toilet still has the hand washing feature up top where it collects the water for flushing uh but yeah shocking that there's no bday next door over is the sink and also the shower room and I noticed right away that above the sink there's no mirrored cabinet it's kind of just open storage which I imagine would get messy quite quickly this corner is where the washing machine would go and it's a bit dirty because the previous tenants just moved out 2 days ago and the professional cleaners hadn't come around yet the shower room is pretty standard nothing in here really stands out to me it's just a shower and a bathtub back in the corridor the door closest to your left is actually this storage closet they've allocated quite a bit of room for storage in this apartment as you continue continue in this is the living room to the left is the kitchen lots of storage space here as well and it looks like mik also enjoys opening all the cabinets and drawers um there's some overhead storage as well the stove is a three burner stove gas stove as well but wait before I open the Fish Grill be warned you might get grossed [Music] out yep we were definitely not expecting that anyways this kitchen is like a semiopen concept there's a little window that looks out it's definitely not my ideal kitchen but it's workable and it's big and overall I think the space is just a really good shape it's easy to arrange furniture around it and then coming into the bedroom it's also very straight forward like a rectangular room it's kind of dark in here because the ceiling lights were uninstalled the balcony is very small I'll probably never use it closet size is not bad there is this Escape ladder in there which I think is like a legal requirement for them to have and then up on the ceiling this is where you're supposed to install your own ceiling lights one thing I did notice about this unit is that one of the main Windows actually looks into someone else's balcony and sort of into their unit which is a little bit awkward but the other window is okay you can actually see kind of far I like to take breaks from the computer and look outside and I like looking far and this is me jumping because this is a wooden building and I just want to make sure that the floors were pretty solid and we wouldn't easily be disturbing neighbors downstairs one thing we realized after viewing this apartment is that we don't prefer having to go up and down stairs like these every day especially if we were to live on the third floor and that's why it's so important to see these places in person and really imagine yourself living in them so those were the three apartments that we saw this week and here is a comparison and recap of all of them so the first apartment was located in eek ohashi which is actually right next to shabuya where Jeff works it's super convenient like one station Away by train or it's a short bus ride or Jeff could even bike to work it's also next to some other really great neighborhoods that we'd love visiting on the weekends in terms of convenience the apartment is a 15-minute walk from the nearest train station which by Tokyo standards Central Tokyo standards is kind of far but for us it's not a problem because we want to bike more anyways the apartment is 37 s m which is a bit smaller than what we were hoping for however because the layout is so open um and so usable like it's just like one big Square we don't don't really mind it's not really a deal breaker for us at this point also the kitchen is chef's kiss although one thing the entryway storage is lacking and also the closet is kind of small the rent for this apartment is 139,000 Yen per month not including utilities and for upfront moving in costs there is one month deposit 1 month of key money and half a month of garer fee and that's pretty standard for moving in Japan and for the second apartment it was located in kichi Joi which is is a bit further away from Jeff's work it's like a 30 minute train ride to get into shabuya however it's a really nice neighborhood and it's often ranked as the best place to live in Tokyo that apartment was a 15minute walk from the train station and taking the train is realistically the only way that Jeff would be getting to work the size of that apartment was 41 square m so it's okay it's bigger than the first one the layout was kind of hard to use we tried to think about how we would arrange furniture and we just couldn't think of for example how we would put a dining table without it weirdly blocking something else also it's like a kitchen net that faces the wall which is specifically something that I was trying to avoid and there seemed to be a lack of natural sunlight coming in through the windows however the bathroom and the entryway was really nice and the monthly rent for that apartment is 150,000 Yen per month not including utilities and there's one month deposit 2 months key money and half a month of guarant fee and for the third apartment we saw it was actually back back in EKG ohashi which again is really close to Jeff's work it's a 20 minute walk from the train station which is really pushing it even for us however we wanted to view this place because on paper it sounded kind of good the size of this apartment was 64 square m which is really big for Central Tokyo and at the budget that we're looking at so we really wanted to see it and when we went in to see it we realize that maybe we don't need that much space actually because we tried to think of how we would arrange furniture and we realized that we would actually have to buy a lot more stuff things that we don't necessarily need just to fill up the space the layout of the apartment was pretty straightforward and really usable however there were some small things that bothered us like there was no bedet the stairs up to the third floor was really Steep and narrow and it just felt a bit less modern overall and the rent for this apartment was 150,000 Yen per month there's also a 2mon deposit 1 month of key money and 1 month of guar fee which is considered on on the high side for moving in Japan and there you have it those were the three apartments that we viewed this week which one would you pick please leave a comment down below and let us know your thoughts also we're going to be doing a few more viewings next week and making a video on that so if you're interested be sure to subscribe to our channel so you don't miss the video thanks for watching and we look forward to seeing you guys next time [Music] bye difficult apartment hunting is not easy yeah but fun it's fun especially with M she makes it feel easier I think I'm [Laughter] Mikan

Channel: Jeff and Mel

Views: 54,107

Keywords:

Id: 9icmwFH_sws

Length: 16min 42sec (1002 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 13 2023