Essay

A renter's rant

By Steve Ford

After 17 years in Japan, I've pretty much adjusted to life here, but there's just one thing that still drives me crazy.

For my first 15 years or so in the land of wa, my spouse was Japanese, and when I would receive official-looking mail that I couldn't read, I could just ask my wife; "Honey what's this?" and she would reply; "Oh it's nothing, just give me that," and I'd be none the wiser.

After getting divorced, I realized how truly inadequate my Japanese language skills were (still are), and it took a couple of years to learn to come to grips with handling national tax, ward tax, national pension payments, national health insurance, rent, water, gas, etc. Now I can even order a pizza on the phone.

I love living here and have never suffered the usual immigrant complaints like racism, trouble fitting into society, etc. Of course, the weather is miserable, but that falls into the category of "can't be helped."

There is however, one thing about Japan I will never understand. That is the overwhelming cost and difficulty involved in renting a place to live. It is something that affects foreigners and Japanese alike, and is definitely something that "could be helped."

In Los Angeles, for example, when renting a place to live, your landlord will ask you to pay first and last month's rent and a small security deposit. As an adult, you are legally empowered to enter into contractual agreements with other parties. After you sign the contract, you move in. If your apartment rent was $1,500 (¥150,000) per month, then your cost to move in would be $3,500 (around ¥350,000).

7 Compare this to Tokyo, where to rent a ¥150,000-per-month apartment, you need to pay as much as 4 months' rent in deposit (shikikin), 2 months' rent to thank the landlord for taking your money (reikin), 1 month rent to the agent, and finally your first month's rent. That means ¥1,200,000 to move in - over three times the cost of renting in L.A.!

And to add insult to injury, if you don't have a personal guarantor, in nearly all cases, you can't even sign the contract - once again a serious problem for foreign residents and Japanese alike.

This almost feudal system amounts to an immense and unnecessary transfer of wealth from tenants to landlords. It makes it difficult for people on the bottom rungs of the Japanese economic ladder to survive.

I hear the government is desperately groping for ways to get the economy moving again. Why not start with a reform of this unfair rental system? It would sure free up a lot of cash that people could put to use toward stimulating the economy.

Shukan ST: April 10, 2009

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