Photo by MOTOSUMIYOSHI-ANNEX

As many people living in Tokyo may have already realized, the rent is pretty high when compared to other cities in Japan.

A typical Tokyo apartment costs around 75,000 – 97,000 yen on average around the Yamanote line–areas like Shibuya and Ueno. Compare this to Osaka and Nagoya where you can expect to pay 40,000 – 50,000 yen for a similar sized place.

To make matters worse, expensive rent is not the only problem. Quite a few landlords in Japan refuse to even rent out rooms if you are not Japanese.

However living a share house has advantages over private apartments.
During my time living in a oak house, I noticed there are a few ways to make the rent cheaper.

1. A blogger discount

Photo by Ryan.

If you are good at writing, oak house is looking for writers who actually live in one of their share houses. The amount of discount varies depending on how much writing experience you have. I personally think it’s a great system even if it’s a small discount. Living in another country is such a great experience. And its simple – just keep a daily journal during your stay and publish it on the oak house blog. It could help you remember things you might forget in the future.

2. Become the “trash guy”

Every oak house share house is cleaned by contracted cleaning staff but taking care of daily trash that piles up is done by an oak house resident. The “trash guy”. In return, he gets 10,000yen off his rent every month. This is actually a cool system but it could be difficult to get the job. Try being extra friendly to the current trash guy and maybe you can take over his role when he moves out.

3. Smart membership discount

This is probably the biggest and the most feasible discount that you can apply for. Basically, you get a monthly discount on your rent depending on how much money you deposit in oak house’s bank account. You can choose how much money you would like to deposit starting from 100,000 yen (1,000 yen discount per month) up to a maximum of 2,000,000 yen (20,000 yen discount per month). This can make a big difference. I often get asked, “can oak house be trusted?” I’d say yes. When I applied for this discount a year ago, oak house issued a copy of the agreement. If you need to access the money for any reason, the process to get the money back is simple and quite fast (1-2 days.)

4. Bring in someone you know “The referral system”

If you know someone interested in living in share house, introduce them to one of the oak houses. You and your friend get 10,000 off rent next month. Your friend doesn’t even have to move into your share house. It can be any share houses as long as they belong to oak house. One of my Thai friends once brought 7 or 8 Thai students from his country and he didn’t have to pay rent for two months. Isn’t this crazy? but this could really happen.

5. Aim for the campaign

Photo by Premiere Matsudo

Every once in a while, Oak house offers a campaign called “Komi-komi plan” which is a free management fee campaign. In every oak house, you need to pay something called management fee which starts from 10,000 to 30,000 yen (depends on the house) on the top of the rent. The management fee is waived during this campaign. It’s a one time discount but it’s definitely worth getting it if you can.

What do you think? Let me know if you have any question.