DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Working in Tokyo

**abossakon** · 02-28-2007, 09:01 PM

Thanks for the post nodachi. Since I'm making the move to Tokyo in August I got a lot of value from it.

One thing that people who haven't lived in Japan before might not now about is key money.

This is a nasty hidden cost. Most of my savings from JET will pay my key money for my future apartment in Tokyo. Basically its a payment made to your landlord, the value of which is a multiple of your rent. It's different on a case by case basis, but it can be refundable or partially refundable. There are places that have no key money but the rent is usually higher to compensate for it. For a 100,000 per month apartment in Tokyo, you can expect to pay 300,000 key money moving in.

02-28-2007, 09:01 PM	#8
abossakon Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 540 Senior Member	Thanks for the post nodachi. Since I'm making the move to Tokyo in August I got a lot of value from it. One thing that people who haven't lived in Japan before might not now about is key money. This is a nasty hidden cost. Most of my savings from JET will pay my key money for my future apartment in Tokyo. Basically its a payment made to your landlord, the value of which is a multiple of your rent. It's different on a case by case basis, but it can be refundable or partially refundable. There are places that have no key money but the rent is usually higher to compensate for it. For a 100,000 per month apartment in Tokyo, you can expect to pay 300,000 key money moving in.
	Quote