No, Renting in Tokyo Isn’t As Cheap As It Seems – Here’s Why
And what did we learn from all this? That I shouldn’t have chosen an economic topic? Yes, but also that it’s a bad idea to use comparison when it comes to cost of living. There are just too many factors lol. ANYWAY – I’m really happy to be here in Tokyo, regardless of the price increase!
Check out my real estate agent! https://houses.tokyo/
He’s seriously, so knowledgable about real estate, Japan, renting, tenant rights and buying property so I can’t recommend him enough!
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50 Comments
super helpful info thank you. i know the tiktoks you're talking about lol they all leave out key money and other stuff. i think for a lot of people, especially ones that can earn money in other currency, it's a great way to do some geo-arbitrage.
I don't think median wage is a good measure, really, especially since many jobs are remote or online. (But I suppose it's hard to find a better measure)
It's much easier to earn above the median if the median is low, and you'd struggle to earn the median if it's high.
And yes, a video on why buying real estate in Japan is not a good idea would be interesting. I think I know the reasons usually cited, but I'd be interested to hear your take on it.
Calling the worlds 4th economy cheap is just overly privilege blind, however some things are more affordable coming from North Europe, other things, less so. Agreed Key money should be illegal along with tipping in the West… Also Australia is wildly overpriced along with Canada for what you get, so yea… Also how dare you say only the center is Tokyo lol. But I do agree that the average def makes it more affordable if you take all the wards into account, and the center def is not a good price representation of the affordability overall.
You kept my attention the whole time. I couldn't agree more about the kitchen space. I think my dream home would be 33% kitchen. It's never enough! 🤣
I used to live there from October 2023 to May 2024. I didn't get a job there until the end of March unfortunately but even without that it was still cheaper to live in Tokyo then it was my city in the USA. I lived in a small city and the rent is high. The only downfall was that the apartments are smaller than the USA but I was okay with that. I do want a better bathroom and kitchen area next time though.
Deep dive time, it's deep dive time! 🎶 I feel intrigued by your google spreadsheet 😊. And I would be interested in a video about why buying a house in Japan might be bad idea! not because I have any skin in the game, but because I'm curious how you see it 🙂. Also wow, those poor people in Hong Kong…
I really enjoy "Hannah Explains" videos. Hannah explains sunscreen. Hannah explains rent in Japan.
How on earth did you make that entertaining!?!?
Great video! Would love to learn about why buying property in Japan is not a good investment (especially involving your deep dive analysis). 🤓
Loved the editing, and so much info packed in just the first couple minutes wow! Greatly appreciated!
The government of Japan could do way more for their Japanese people, including getting rid of the gift money
Well done, Hannah. And yes, when you get around to it, I would love to see a "buy a house in Japan" video, especially if you could somehow contrast the urban vs rural situation.
Great video! I would say to make your calculations more accurate you need to calculate the "take home" salary (salary after tax) instead of just the salary on paper
This videos is amazing! And with how you going with the details, I'm considering to contact Yo as one of my prospective agnets in the near future. 👍
Tokyo, and greater Tokyo (including Yokohama, etc). Is by no means /affordable/. As a South East Asian working jn Tokyo, it's really frustrating to see short videos portraying the /cheapness/ of Tokyo from Americans perspective. With that out of the way, my 30% upper limit is around 130k a month and since apartment is subsidized by my office, i can bump it up to 180k and im currently living in an overpriced, newly built, apartment in Kita-ku area for 120k. And I can't wait too move out to Yokohama next year. I still miss Osaka though.
I am absolutely floored that someone would go to Japan and own a jeep wrangler that seems backwards to me
I used to live in Yokohama downtown area in a small 1k (25sqm) for 60k p/m as a single lady earning 280k p/m. I now live in a big country town in Hokkaido with my husband (he got transferred) and we still only pay 60k p/m, but now we are living in a new 3 bedroom apartment (70sqm) with views. Also a lot more income so financial stress is basically nonexistent. I’d recommend to anyone to try and get a job in a big company in a big city and then be open to an Inaka transfer because you will continue to get that Tokyo money for an Inaka cost of living.
Great video…one question, is the lease for one year or more? So the rent doesn't go up after a year?, compared to us here in Australia, that would be totally unheard of. The concrete in your apartment is the winner !! – it looks like a Nightingale Apartment here in Brunswick, Victoria – well done you two 2⃣
Great video Hannah!!! 👏
hello i live in a 2 ldk 50 square metre place in musashi kosugi for 120,000. we just had to put down one month rent and we just said we would keep the old locks and not clean the ac. I am a japanese passport holder but it was surprising how many places would phone places to ask i a fo passport holder but it was surprising how many places would phone places to if you want a fun tool to play around with, a website called porty has a map with a heat map of average rent costs!
Not Tokyo, but in Hiroshima I made ¥5.1mil last year and my rent is ¥67,000. I rent a 2 storey house with 3 cats and a dog. As an American, I thought this was a steal, but my coworkers don't think so haha
As someone from Hong Kong, I live in envy of how cheap and big Japanese shoeboxes are.
Hey you did a REALLY good job… except for that London figure.
Girl what? I was under the impression no one thought Tokyo rent was cheap 😂 it's so expensive compared to Seoul!
Hi Hannah, I don't know if you have heard of Sailing La Vagabonde, a couple of Aussies exploring the world by Sea, they are in japan at the moment, unfortunately a fishing boat just ran into their yacht, hope their ok. you might want to check them out.
Nice little high level assessment and calculations Hannah – loved it. Analysis can always go off in different directions so I think you did a decent job pulling all that together. Just ignore the pessimistic comments and word of advice – delete TikTok (yuck). Can't stand it.. 🙂
After moving from Brisbane to Sapporo last year, we've foundry similarities to you in your Osaka > Tokyo move particularly around the foreigner front & income assessment. Thankfully the market conditions are a little different here in Sapporo however, we're about to now finally move down to Tokyo in the coming weeks and I dread looking for a new place again as I feel the 礼金 and car space will be an issue so will largely dictate what and where we base ourselves. I feel we've been spoilt by the Sapporo renting experience so I can feel the blood pressure rising already for Tokyo.
On our YT channel, we've also had to be mindful (as you've said) on making comparisons to Japan being cheap (vis-a-vis Australia) because you're right, it comes across as a little demoralizing – so great advice. We've tempered back this rhetoric now that we're imbedded into society now.
Great to see you've settled nicely into something. Looks amazing. Love the industrial Concrete look! Inspires us to look for something different. Keep the vids coming. Enjoy the cooler weather.
東京は家賃は高いです、ニューヨーク、パリ、ロンドン、シンガポールに比べれば安いかもしれませんけど
神奈川や千葉、埼玉から都心まで電車で1時間程度なのでそれらに住む方が賢い
Yes, true, in Osaka you can find affordable, but in Tokyo the affordable is more expensive 😊 yes, i think that too, key money 💰 is BS
just buy a house in the suburbs, this rent price is ridiculous! you are a youtuver you dont need to be at the center of tokyo
As someone who currently lives in Philadelphia, where the average portion of a person's income spent on rent is somewhere around 40% (we are America's poorest major city with the highest poverty rate and a median income that remained stagnant for nearly 40 years), and as someone who wants to move to Japan and has looked at the median income compared to the median apartment price in the areas where I would like to live… it would be a lateral move, at best, for me financially speaking. Thank you for providing context, and for reminding everyone with American dollars that Japan is cheap only so long as they participate in their economy purely as a consumer.and not as a resident or laborer.
The only thing I would critique about the “stats” is that you didn’t use post tax income, Hong Kong has almost no income tax…
The other thing is why the landlord doesn’t like the tenant sorting garbage correctly…shouldn’t that be in trouble with the neighbor or garbage company and not the landlord?
I thought tipping was getting out of control in the US, but I've never had to tip my landlord.
What happened to Mochi (am I remembering his name right)? I forgot all about him until I saw him at 22:36 in your past apartment montage.
Hey Hanna can you look into buying homes I notice people say buying abandoned homes is good but lot of my Japanese relatives say it’s not good idea can you a video about that? And ask your realtor issues of it and the hoops they need jump though..
Hong Kong is out of control when it comes to rental.. SAw so many documentary of elder living basically in a coffin… it's so bad what is happening to them.
You are really attractive, let's get together and split the rent so it's not as expensive
Very informative even for me who is Japanese.
THANK YOU! as someone from 3rd world (PH), It's always been a pet peeve when someone from US or another country says sO ChEaP hEre but obviously showing hire end(for locals) stuff
I'm not living in Japan now, but I was living there for around 20 years and left about 10 years ago. I was lucky to be working at a multinational company in IT and was earning around 20 million yen / year. One thing to consider, is that if you are a permanent employee (i.e., not a contractor), you can often get your rent paid from your salary before tax. That is a great deal if you are earning good money. Probably less so on the median salary, but worth it nonetheless.
Another thing you should mention is that many places have a contract renewal fee of around 1 month every 2 years. I knew a real estate agent that would specialise in no key money apartments and didn't charge the landlord fee. Using her I could move and only consider the cost of the moving company and new deposit (but hopefully get the old deposit back). So I would move every 2 years instead of paying the renewal fee. I moved three times like that.
Trick is being paid in USD and spending Yen
RE Parking: When I lived in Downtown San Francisco I also had to rent a parking space at $325USD/mo. I feel that pain. And also, I miss it and wanna go back. So there's that.
Please make a video about why buying a property is a bad investment in Japan. What if the property can be used for airbnb?
Very informative video and congrats on the new apartment.
Would love to share stats with you on rent paid, etc. however, if there was an anonymous non-public space to do this 🙂
Chris is a lucky man.
One thing the people neeever talk about is, how draining it is to aaaalllways watch out for even making the smallest mistake like 24/7. Noticed that every time when I come back from Japan. How great is it, when you just have a bit more "people dont give a damn" 😀 Still love to of course BUT living in Tokyo must be really tiring some times. I am sure 🙂 thank you so much for the great video!
Speaking over background music is extremely irritating.
Yeah, talking with Japanese associates, even the corporate ones, it’s eye-opening to know how little they get paid compared to their international counterparts. Every year I visit and see the for hire signs, and the wages sometimes goes down. Like man, how are some people living on 1000 yen per hour. Their minimum wage by the way. In Tokyo I see plenty of job posters only willing to pay 1100 yen. These guys here could be busting 40hrs a week and only earn 176,000 yen pre tax. It’s more practical for those who can, to work in another country until the yen recovers, if it recovers.
The reason you think twice about putting tacks in the wall is because they used to be prohibited or at least guaranteed that you would be charged when you move out. Now, supposedly, you should not be charged for “normal wear and tear” when you move out, however, you are often charged complicated cleaning fees, etc., which definitely affects how much of the deposit is returned. And, I’m not sure if you mentioned the “renewal fee” when you want to renew your lease. Both the cleaning costs at move out and renewal fees vary depending on your lease, so it is always best to carefully review the contract, rather than be surprised later on 😅