House Hunting in Tokyo as a Student
Photo by Yan Krukau
Are you struggling to find housing solutions in Tokyo as a student? You’re not alone!
Tokyo has many educational opportunities for international students over 18 years old. Whether language schools (such as Tokyo Central Japanese Language Institute, ARC Tokyo Japanese Language School, ISI Language School), or universities (such as The University of Tokyo, Waseda University, Temple University), to specialty schools (such as HAL Tokyo and UTokyo College of Design)– if you’re not living on campus and don’t want to live in a share house, then you’re going to be faced with the challenge of finding long-term housing.
Why is finding long-term housing in Tokyo such a challenge for students?
Photo by Kaboompics
Renting a house or apartment in Tokyo can be tough for foreigners. Of all properties available on the market, only about 30% can support foreigners, and from those, only about half can support those who cannot speak Japanese.
When it comes to rentals that can support student visas, the options available are even less!
Long-term options
So how does one find a great long-term rental in Tokyo for education, when the selection is so slim?
Navigating the Tokyo housing market is like playing a game of chess; you need strategy and the right moves. You have to find a real estate agency that can guide you through the whole process and be there for support, that also has vast experience working with students.
Of course- we’re going to recommend ourselves, apts.jp, as we’ve been supporting students since 2017.
On our search platform, we have a Student Friendly filter, just for you!
https://apts.jp/search?student=on
We have a comprehensive student-friendly section on our platform, and availability for all rentals is updated daily!
One issue with other platforms is that they tend to keep properties up on their site, even after they have been taken by an application submission (Tokyo works on a first-come first-served basis, so first applicant is important). Other platforms do this to inflate their property numbers, but at apts.jp, we show you what is actually available.
So when you browse our student-friendly selection- and even though the Tokyo rental market moves very fast- you can be rest assured that you’ll be browsing rentals that have a high probability of being available for you. And if you don’t find anything suitable? -Contact us, and we’d be happy to do custom searches for you, no problem.
Short-term options
If you plan to be studying in Tokyo for less than a year, then furnished monthly options might be more suitable for you! With everything inclusive and contract terms being more flexible than standard long-term rentals, monthly rentals might be just what you need for your shorter educational stay in Tokyo.
Check out our Monthly section on our platform, to see what’s right for you:
We look forward to supoporting your move!