Hi everyone!!
I'm moving to Japan in september for about a year with my girlfriend who is from Osaka. We're both moving to Kyoto to study and we've started to look for apartments. At first glance it seemed like the prices were quite affordable but then we started talking to the agencies and there were sooo many different fees that were added on top of the rent that it's really hard to keep track of what's what. For example in one apartment we looked at they wanted 160 000 yen as "gift money" which as i understand it is just like a gift that we pay to the landlord?? Then there was a 33000 yen fee for the keys, 55000 yen cleaning fee and they wanted 2 months rent in advance as well as a security deposit. So what I'm getting at: is this normal or are we being scammed? My girlfriend tells me that it's normal but i just wanted to check with all of you as well. Why isn't all of this just included in rent and they could just make it a bit higher??
Thanks on beforehand from a confused Swede
by balloontrout