Accommodation Appointments

[steadyboy]

Someone has told me that appartments are let with a very low level of appointment. That is to say the appartment will have a w.c. and a kitchen sink and that is all. All other furniture is to be purchased/rented/borrowed. Can someone tell me if there is any truth in this? Surely an appartment can be rented on a furnished or part-furnished basis?

[larabell]

Someone has told you wrong. The trouble with listening to "someone" is that you only get one person's opinion based on their own limited experience. There are certainly modern apartments here with, on average (and in my opinion), better accomodations than I was used to when I was living in California. And if you get away from the Tokyo and Osaka areas (which are more comparable, price-wise, to Mahhattan than Austin) the rent is not all that bad.

You can get furnished apartments. But since most furnished apartments are targeted at temporary residents (ie: those with an expense account), they will be more expensive than simply renting unfurnished and buying furniture. And if you're in the place for more than a year or two, you can toss the furniture when you leave and still come out ahead.

I'm paying pretty close to what my colleagues in San Jose were paying for the same amount of living space during the dot-com bubble, if that tells you anything. For that I get an on-the-fly water heater, seperate bathroom and toilet, a bath that my two kids and I can share comfortably, and a nice balcony. Obviously, if you're coming over from Idaho the prices will be shocking -- but moving to San Francisco would be even worse, from what I'm told. And I know a friend who bought a 4-story split level near Atami for less than what another friend paid for a 2-BR townhome in San Jose. It's all relative and it depends a lot on where you choose to live.

[synthia]

Ah, Japan seems reasonable to those from the high-priced areas of the US, expensive to others, just like any other move.

I stayed with friends in an apartment in Tokyo for a while, and while it was unfurnished, it came with a refrigerator and cooktop. However, in Kitakyushu, only the very new, modern apartments came with appliances. I had to buy a cooktop and refrigerator.

Having to buy appliances is not unusual in some countries. Even in the US. Where I grew up, for some unknown reason, apartments came with stoves but not refrigerators. Again, the newer ones came fully equipped. The idea that the appliances convey even when buying a house is relatively new, and pretty much came about when they started to be built in. It used to be stoves and refrigerators were always free-standing.

I was considering moving to Ecuador, and there even new apartements come without appliances.

What was hard for me was not having a built-in heating system. I hated that kerosene heater with a passion, and the necessity of sleeping with a window open a bit because of fumes.

[larabell]

Yeah... when I thought "furniture", I wasn't thinking of kitchen appliances. My current place has built-in stove, dishwasher, and a cheap-ass washer/dryer pair that I wish had not come with the place. We already had a refrigerator.

In California (where I lived the longest before Japan), I always thought it depended more on whether the previous owners wanted to keep their appliances or not. They are pretty expensive to move compared to other stuff. When I moved out of the company-provided place I was in for the first couple years here, we negotiated with the landlord to simply leave the refrigerator in place for the next tenant. For all I know, it could still be there.

But, in general, movable appliances don't seem to come with unfurnished apartments here. Maybe it's a cultural/expectation thing.