Little Things That Irk You 3 1/3: The Final Insult

[kryss]

Kansai is terrible for that. There's a guy near where I used to live who runs a rental agency who don't ask for that. They do make you pay a renewal fee when you sign a new lease.
54k is hardly expensive (my first apartment was 64k, then 86k for my second close to Shinmatsudo station), but I'm guessing reikin is 3-6 months? Nonsense money.

How come? make sure you keep on at them they are buggers for not refunding they always try the old "oh we'll give you store credit" line on.

BTW mr Kryss, please can you give me your paypal email i still owe you cash but i never got a reply to my last pm.

They've told me I have to contact my card provider... I'm just going to email them back and tell them that there is no trace of a refund.

And ok, I'll try to get ZX on the way to you...sooon...

[sj33]

Luckily the reikin is 'only' one month's rent (and my wife's parents are paying that, for which I am extremely grateful ). It's more the principle of the thing - the practice irks me. I understand maintenance fee and even the shikikin (cleaning insurance) fee to an extent because they at least nominally pay for something (even if I still dislike it).

The reikin doesn't actually pay for anything though, it's just a remnant anachronistic practice whereby we pay the owners for the 'privilege' of being allowed to pay them even more money every month.

[kryss]

The one that made me wonder was when one of the residents came around asking us for 2000yen for the upkeep of the garbage collection area. Surely something covered in the rent? I quizzed her on what exactly I was giving her money for and she came back the next day with a written explanation in reasonably well translated English as to what and why. I mainly gave her the cash because I felt a little guilty at having made her do that work.

My first apartment here in Calgary took 10% of our deposit (a month's rent = $1250, it was a MASSIVE 2 bed/2 bath) after we'd moved out to steamclean the carpets. But they never did and turned the place into a hotel a few months later, just stripping the carpet out.

My irk of the day:
Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo is/was on this weekend. Matt Smith and Karen Gilliam were announced to be attending AFTER the tickets were 90% sold out, including all weekend passes and all saturday tickets. Good thing I don't care too much.

[randombs]

Just signed for our new apartment today. 1 month key money, 1 month deposit and 1 month agency fee. Landlord is friendly, too.

The place is lovely, though. 1-2 mins from Osaki station(we can see the station entrance from our balcony), two bedrooms, one large LDK room and a Japanese room. The Japanese room is gorgeous. Looks like something out of Shenmue. Even the ceiling is triangular.

And our building has a mini park just for residents. A bit over budget at 155,000Y/month(he agreed to a 5000Y discount) but maintenance is included so it brings it closer to our original budget and the quality of the place is head and shoulders above the other ones we saw. Also it has a four year renewal period, not two like most others, so no 1-2 months renewal fee every two years.

I'll get back into English conversation classes on weekends to earn more cash. Tokyo will be better for those than where I am now.

[sj33]

Decided on our new apartment today too. Went to view the place today and signed up straight away.

It's literally a brand new apartment, built last month. Nobody has been in there except the owner and the agency people, it actually smells brand new and everything still has the seals on! It's really good for what we're paying, an 8.8-jou main room plus 6.6-jou bedroom loft area, plus separate fitted kitchen, bathroom (proper heated ofuro), electric toilet, dedicated wash basin, balcony etc, and also free fibre internet connection. All for a mere 54,000 yen per month plus 3,000 yen maintenance fee.

I'm a little bit stunned that we've been able to get such a relatively large, literally brand new apartment for so cheap. It's basically because it's so far north of the city, the outskirts approaching the mountains. It's not too bad though - still well serviced by bus routes that run until late, plenty of shops around the area, it's near the river which makes cycling into the centre of town really quick (cycling alongside river is almost like a motorway for bicycles). The separate bedroom loft area means that one of us can go to bed if the other wants to stay up late.
Because there's three separate little staircases (one from the 'downstairs' entrance, bathroom etc. area to the living room, then another up to the bedroom loft), it actually feels more like a small house than the single floor apartment that it actually is.

Layout - https://imgur.com/JJEJ1Rw
Pictures - https://imgur.com/a/954JN/all

I can't wait until July when we can move in (some bits of the building are still being built and finalised).

[kryss]

155,000Y/month

Holy crap that's a **** load of money.

[wakka]

Split between 2 people it seems to be around ?450 PCM. That's what you'd pay in London, too (easily).

Congrats guys. Shakey that flat looks swish!

[speedlolita]

A flat around where I live would be ?600 a month minimum. I can't afford that. :c

[briareos_kerensky]

Holy crap that's a **** load of money.

Average rents for apartments in central Switzerland are around that price, with newer places (with private washing machine, tumbler, floor heating, and so on) going for more. I pay 1700CHF (1400 €, 1150 GBP) for a relatively old apartment (but fully renovated just before I moved in) in the center of the Canton's capital, 3 rooms with fitted kitchen, around 90 square metres, without garage.
I guess that Switerzland and Japan are very similar when it comes to rent prices, though here are kept high because buildable terrain is a premium and apartments tend to be on the large.

[buster_broon]

I lived in Gibraltar for 3 years and house prices there are incredible and most live up the coast in alcadasia, ronda or in la linea itself

I remember a friend of mine sold his garage, just an average garage and nothing special for ?30,000

My mortgage is ?647 a month up here in bonnie scotchland

[VR46]

Almost same here, hoorah for getting in to the property market back in 1998.

Didn't realise sj33 was Shakey Jake.

[kryss]

Average rents for apartments in central Switzerland are around that price, with newer places (with private washing machine, tumbler, floor heating, and so on) going for more. I pay 1700CHF (1400 €, 1150 GBP) for a relatively old apartment (but fully renovated just before I moved in) in the center of the Canton's capital, 3 rooms with fitted kitchen, around 90 square metres, without garage.
I guess that Switerzland and Japan are very similar when it comes to rent prices, though here are kept high because buildable terrain is a premium and apartments tend to be on the large.

There are more apartments than renters in Japan - that price is the Tokyo living premium. How much was your old place in Nagareyama Billy?

[sj33]

Almost same here, hoorah for getting in to the property market back in 1998.

Didn't realise sj33 was Shakey Jake.

I thought keeping the same avatar, initials and numbers would have made it clear!

My guess it that Tokyo would be more expensive than Kyoto anyway. In downtown central Kyoto, properties can be really expensive (hence myself living further to the outskirts. Still, 155,000 yen is a bit of an eyewatering sum compared with what seems to be the norm here in Kyoto!

[kryss]

My first place was 64,000 and that was too big for me and my ex, but a 20 min walk to the station.

[randombs]

Kryss: my place is 70,000/month all in.

It's a 1K, though. Going from that to a 3LDK will be glorious. GLORIOUS!

Sj33: mine was a brand new build, too. The first few months were horrible because of the new smell everywhere. Good thing you're moving when it's warm so you can open all the windows most of the time and vent the place out. Your place looks lovely and it's the same here - farther away means much cheaper prices but I've spent the last two months commuting from Saitama to shunjuku and it's unbearable. And it's only 15'C in the mornings. No way I'd be doing that trip in the summer.

Good luck!