What a $20,000/Month Japanese Apartment is Like | Tokyo Home Tour

of all the things we've seen in this gigantic apartment so far this is the thing that's impressed me the most the concept of a garden on the rooftop of a building in the center of the city japan often gets a lot of attention for its tiny apartments and small spaces i mean for my first three years living here in my apartment i had to use an ironing board as a valuable kitchen space as a kitchen counter it was pretty pretty sad in hindsight but what is life like on the other side of the fence a good friend of mine living here in tokyo who runs a luxury real estate business recently got in touch to say that he could get us inside one of the biggest apartments in all of tokyo an apartment that cost a staggering twenty thousand dollars per month now to put that in perspective a studio apartment in tokyo on average costs about a hundred thousand yet about a thousand dollars you get about 35 square meters for that so what do you get when you pay 20 times that amount honestly i don't know i've never been inside anywhere like this before so let's go and find out this is going to be depressing [Music] this is alex shapiro he owns my home real estate yes and what have you got for me today alex you mentioned a 20 000 apartment yes i have an amazing place for you right in between two of tokyo's most desirable neighborhoods uh with probably the best rooftop garden in all of tokyo maybe all of japan actually i don't think i've been anywhere with a rooftop garden before so i could barely believe that yeah scotty can't even believe that and also the camera person should probably introduce who they are because they're somebody who's good so charlotte hi she is joining us today sharla is going to look at a separate property um and i'm going to make a video about that and i'll link that in the description box so you can check it out as well so two properties the one i'm looking at is twenty thousand dollars and the one you're looking at is fifteen grand thirteen thousand dollars so both pretty exclusive exciting properties so check out her video thank you let's go let's do it if you were to pick two of the trendiest neighborhoods in central tokyo odds are the shopping districts of harajuku and the motto sandor be at the top of the list and our property today is just a two minute walk from harajuku's infamous takeshita street nestled on the fourth floor of what is essentially a post-modern castle we just got out of the elevator we've got the big intimidating looking door here but if you look around here you can actually see the garden it falls that by standards of the garden in tokyo that is it's pretty damn impressive i just want to stop you right there that's not actually the garden by the way that's not the garden that's just the inner garden i will show you the actual garden in a second all right but if you look right over there you can see that little faucet over there right that is where you wash your dog's feet after you take them for a walk wow joking so is the dog washing feet garden exactly it's the technical term for it good god all right let's let's go let's go through this all right like a nuclear bunker door isn't it how thick that is solid wood then you go through here you have a solid wood what you think is a wall but this is actually all shoe storage for if you take a look right over here that has a lot of storage yes but if you come over here let's check out the living spaces first so if we come over here you'll see the first part of the living quarters this is the first bedroom the first how many bedrooms are that's four bedrooms actually room so this is the least big let's call it the smallest of all the bedrooms of course you have plenty of storage space over here if you go around all this is closets on the wall again so this is a bit bigger than most bedrooms in most apartments in japan and this is just the first bedroom i'm also the smallest you have you'll see a lot more sun in here because it's a corner room so you have windows on all sides and by the way all these windows very rare for japan if you take a look this is dual pane glass so nice in the winter also nice in the summer and also barely noise we're right in the middle of the world's biggest city you can barely hear a pin drop yeah the only thing you hear in here is the ac running that's pretty much it yeah and look at the view yeah for me that's already my favorite thing about this apartment the view is really quite impressive you can go through the master bathroom to get to the master bedroom if you take a look over here you have the first of two jacuzzi baths also if you look over there there's a tv so you can watch watch the abroad japan channel watch abroad in japan weeknights at 7 on youtube and if you look over here this is amazing this is where you can hang your clothes because i mean people in japan don't really use dryers and this kind of stores up if you don't want that that is also we talked about ironing boards you can use that as an ironing board holder over there oh wow so this is the kitchen uh that is the kitchen yes that's your kitchen exactly what is this again this is like the hanging clothes room exactly and this is basically already bigger than my kitchen yes that's that's sad i think that says more about me than the house but that's cool all right now let's go check out the master bedroom and oh my god it is massive let's take a look around [Music] this is essentially the size of my apartment in one room it's a very open place and when you mention it's bigger than your apartment it might be because this place is actually over 40 square meters just for this room so most japanese apartments in tokyo at least are a bit smaller than that so where would you like put the bed in here do you think you wouldn't do it if i was to do it i would have a california king-sized bed right in the middle i'd go all feng shui in the middle nothing touching the walls because there are no walls and also you don't need to have any kind of like wardrobes or anything because if you come over here you'll see the entire wall here is your closet and you got to remember in japan they don't usually keep you know shoes in the closet door this is just for clothing and you know suitcases and you put your socks in here beautiful right great for putting your socks in so i want to take you to the first part of the living room area which would be the kitchen come on over here it's like amazing here it is it's amazing there we go he's very he's very good at this that's right i tried this got the living room and dining room yeah this is it what i mean what is this that last room is about 40 meters square that was just over 40 meters squared this is 83 square meters large so again you said that's about you know the size of your apartment you could fit two of your apartments in here what would you put in here well you could put an airplane in here you built a small airplane but airplane nonetheless well i mean if you want to do it by vehicles you could actually fit four cars into here so that's one thing that's our new unit of measurement how many cars can you fit in the room in your living room in your living room yeah nice i mean really the biggest thing you have to wonder is how big of a tv do you get how many sofas do you want you know it's that kind of stuff how big of a dining room table do you want but this is the perfect place to have you know any kind of reception or any kind of you know large parties also if you don't want the kitchen in view you can just you know take it right out of you just like that yeah but i would have my wait you just you just hid in the kitchen yeah don't make that look like it's not spectacular that is ridiculous hidden in the kitchen with a door i'll show it to you again many apartments can do this with the marble countertops by the way how much did you say just over 2 million yet let's see i don't have a tv over here i would have a big maybe uh 100 inch or something like that right there why not right you know big l shaped couch or something like that that's what i would do here what would you do i would just roll around on the floor and laugh about how brilliant i was if i lived somewhere like this just roll and roll and roll yeah who actually lives somewhere like this because i don't know anyone who would live in this sort of apartment so who actually is aimed at well this is mostly for diplomats and also like high-level diplomats usually the minister counselor type of level and also the heads of different companies over here and just very very rich bulk so it's paid for by typically companies or embassies they're the kind of people that pay for it generally speaking expenses yeah uh this guy is the intercom this is so when people you know want to buzz in when you want to buzz in people they'll show their faces over here but you know that's pretty normal for japanese houses and apartments but the very very strange thing that this has right here is this button right here it's in japanese but it translates to a button used to allow the elevator to come up here this elevator does not come up to the fourth floor usually this is on the fourth floor uh so what you have to do is either use the key to get in or if you just want somebody to come up without you having to go downstairs you press that and the elevator will start working into the fourth floor as well i want one yeah i don't have an elevator to my phone buy one that's so cool can i come up no i'm not gonna press the button unless you've got chocolate so uh just one more thing i want to show you just if you step out of the living room come over here there's one more bedroom and yeah it's just a guest bed but i would still like to show it to you well we've already seen a bedroom that was the size of a small airport so yes now just keep in mind this is the guest bedroom and this is larger than most master bedrooms in japanese apartments and again these are all closets right here for when you're i don't know your parents come in uh wait just put your parents in there yeah stick them right it's amazing i fit my whole family in there most apartments and houses in japan only have one bathroom like full bathroom with a bath and shower and everything but this one they decided you know what i'm not gonna do that we're gonna have the bathroom over there for you know everybody that lives here generally but we're also going to have a specific bathroom for the uh oh here wow this is really nice yeah the floor's heated yeah and somebody left the floor heaters on and they are very very nice oh wow yeah that's nice so nice yeah in winter that'd be perfect so now we're in the mini garden that's on the fourth floor but uh chris likes to call it the dog garden by the way dog garden the secret garden that's not so secret because every single room can see it exactly chris's super garden right yes now the reason it's called the dog garden is because of this guy right here which is a shower specifically made to wash your dog's feet if i lived here which is never going to happen i would probably just sit like out here maybe i'll have like a table here yeah sit drink my coffee play with the dog wash my dog's feet yeah it'd be glorious now this is again the mini garden and when i said that there's a big garden this is not the big garden we're gonna go see that in a second [Music] so now we're on the top floor and we're ready to go out to the garden ready for this i'm ready there we go right out here is the garden that i was talking about and this is just the entrance to the garden let's take a look over here yep follow me so now we're just kind of in the hallway area of the garden now if you come on over here you can see the main part of the garden itself this is like your own private english garden if anything you can kind of walk around here you know just through and get lost on your rooftop how many places have you been to where you can get lost on your rooftop nowhere no no this is a great place to sit and eat muffins it is that's what i'm thinking muffins and crumpets yes and scones whatever you call them up there okay so we were just in the jungle side of the garden i want to show you the more i'd say functional side of it if you come on over here just over these rocks on the ground but you'll see this beautiful bench built right into the uh the wall over here and i would actually put my table out here i would have some kind of dinner parties out here what would you do would you just sleep there meditate meditate meditate this is the meditation garden it's just really peaceful like a little bit of a zen garden vibe going on here i would sit here morning coffee crumpets scones scones of all the things we've seen in this gigantic apartment so far all the rooms and there were many uh this is the thing that's impressed me the most i think the concept of a garden on the rooftop of a building in the center of the city uh i mean my garden space is is like a balcony this big covered in dirty washing and it's not nice this is like an oasis in the heart of the city yes um and i am quite envious i mean seeing a big apartment's one thing but seeing a garden like this it's just i yeah i'm quite jealous do you feel jealous when you come to these apartments and you're showing people around well of course i am jealous of the people that are able to live in these kind of places i mean this garden is probably the size of my entire apartment but i know i hope one day that i can get to the level that i can have a garden like this that's how i feel you keep selling apartments like this yeah you can do it one day i believe in you this area here is the size of my entire apartment and just the fact that they have an outdoor space is just crazy to me i've lived in japan for 15 years i've never had a garden i've only had a little balcony that was maybe half the size of this bench so yeah this is pretty amazing i honestly didn't even know that houses of this size existed in central tokyo just blows my mind the kitchen 80 square meters what i've never had an apartment that big while this post-modern castle already clocks in at 20 dollars a month just merely deciding to move in will set you back a further hundred and thirty thousand dollars in fees upfront there's the first two months rent the security deposit the insurance the lock changing fee the guarantor company fee and finally the agency commission and if you pay all that congratulations the place is all yours and if you're not bankrupt by this point don't worry the neighborhood car park will finish off what's left yeah so we just left we've only been here for i don't know maybe an hour or two or something and it came out to eighteen hundred yen for that twenty dollars yeah more or less don't you love harajuku [Music] thank you for showing us around alex yeah it was a lot of fun one of the most difficult things foreigners face when coming to japan is getting an apartment certainly when i moved to sendai when they found out i was a foreigner they were like you can't stay here you can't and that kind of shut me down have you found that to be a problem in tokyo as well yes it is absolutely a problem over here and i have to ask every time um our foreigners allowed to stay here and yeah that takes up probably you know half of my time when i'm searching for places calling them up and asking if they're foreign friendly and even still if they are foreign friendly a lot of the times they will change the conditions that you have to meet you know they'll change the amount of money that you have to pay in order to move in why is it more difficult for foreigners to get an apartment in japan from your experience they think of foreigners as a flight risk so they can just take off without paying but yeah that and also they i mean sometimes they've had bad experiences with foreigners in the past and sometimes it's just kind of like they don't trust foreigners you have to look for both sides of the coin to some extent why absolutely if you're a landlord and you've got 10 applicants one of them is foreign maybe you are going to skew towards japanese tenants right yeah less risk so you've been running this company for two years now yes what led you to get into the world of real estate in japan i mean that's pretty impressive i think you're the only foreign business owner i know working in the world real estate so my partner and i saw that there was a big gap between you know the amount of foreign people that want to live over here and a lot and the places that actually can deal with having foreign people coming to their offices so this is a big problem is that even if you you know even if there are properties out there that are foreign friendly it's still hard to find a real realtor that can actually deal with you in english and that is you know one of obviously one of the services that we provide but um the dog is sleeping she's snoring right on my own snoring well away well yeah that's what they do pugs hugs just snoring and yeah all day long sky's the real style of the show today i did that fantastic well thank you so much alex for showing us around yeah it's a lot of fun you can check out ihome real estate in the description box below and if you want to contact alex more directly you have kind of more exclusive hidden properties as well yeah website yes so a lot of the places that i actually have i can't show on the website so if yes there's a lot of secret places so uh including the one that i showed you today oh a secret yes don't tell anyone and if you want to see the second video we did with sharla on her channel you can click on the card above here and see how we got on in property number two and thank you to sharla for being the world's best cameraman but for now guys as always many thanks for watching we'll see you next time yeah thank you very much bye goodbye

Channel: Abroad in Japan

Views: 2,328,693

Rating: 4.9345274 out of 5

Keywords: japan apartment, japanese apartment, japan apartment tour, tiny japanese apartment, tiny japanese apartment tour, tokyo apartment, tokyo apartment tour, living in japan, abroad in japan

Id: tORfGTrr1ww

Length: 17min 38sec (1058 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 24 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/HeavyontheIce]

Insane how it’s still so tiny in comparison to what you’d get in the US for 20k a month. I guess it depends on if you’re in a big city or not though.

[u/boomhaeur]

My dad was transferred to Japan for his job when I was in college - the company’s policy was that you got to live in equivalent accommodation to what you would typically live in in your home country.

Which in our case was essentially a four bedroom house. Now houses that size weren’t really an option but they did end up living in a four bedroom condo that basically took up one whole side of the apartment building and a good chunk of the other two sides. For Japan it was MASSIVE.

The kicker was he only had to pay what he would pay in his home country - company picked up the rest. The rent was US$10,000, he paid about $1200. (This was in the mid 90’s)

Added bonus - I got two free tickets a year to go visit them.

[u/MostExpensiveThing]

Still love Japan!

[u/LunarTaxi]

Yeah... not really selling the idea of moving to Japan in this episode.

[u/PrincessBananas85]

I wonder why the apartment is so expensive.