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Sugoi! I'd be interested in hearing the price breakdown for living in Tokyo at current exchange rates ($USDJPY = 110.00)? For a moderate two bedroom in a cool

Sugoi! I'd be interested in hearing the price breakdown for living in Tokyo at current exchange rates ($USDJPY = 110.00)? For a moderate two bedroom in a cool neighborhood? As well as office space. And how is the availability of gigabit residential fiber options. Say, comparable to Verizon FIOS (~$150/mo)? In short, if anyone has set up a remote office for 2-3 months or even permanently I'd love to hear their experiences ;)

Aeolun 8y ago
* 2 bedroom in cool neighborhood: $2100/month * office space (3 people) somewhere central, shared facilities, private office: $2000/month * residential gigabit (min 1 year contract): $60/month * food for one month, either eating out or buying decent groceries and cooking: $800/month --- Those are off the top of my head. I'm not very interested in living in a cool neighborhood and rent where I live is more like $1400 (office space is presumably correspondingly lower).
- rc_hadoken 8y ago
  Way more affordable than I thought. I'm guessing the office space is split and a 1bedroom is 1300~?
- WhompingWindows 8y ago
  Sounds similar to Providence, RI regarding expenses. I'd wager a similar lifestyle in Boston, MA would go for $1k more than what you've listed, finding a 2 BR in a cool neighborhood of Boston area is probably going to be $3k or more.
- vorpalhex 8y ago
  How do restaurant prices compare to grocery prices typically? Do folks tend to go out as often as they do in the US?
  - 0xCMP 8y ago
    Just came back from a trip and most restaurant prices match the US in cities. Cheaper places go for around $6-7/meal. Most end up being around $20/meal (+/- 5). Obviously cooking at home or snacking ($1-3/snack) from convince stores lowers that amount. Most prices include tax and there is never a tip.
throwaway-jp 8y ago
Fiber to the home (ftth) is dead cheap here, only about US$50 (¥6500) for 1Gbps unmetered. Rent for a cheap 2LDK really depends on how far to the station, how new, etc. As a bachelor you could get a nice 50-60sqm 2 room plus Living/Dining/Kitchen in Yoyogi for ¥150,000-200,000 per month. The hard part will be getting a landlord to accept your lease application without being hired by a local company. Rent guarantee companies can be used to avoid having to find a Japanese guarantor. Serviced apartments run by foreign companies will be large and well positioned, but start around ¥500,000 per month. A short term stay in an AirBnB of 2-3 months might be possible, but you’ll only be able to get a tourist visa, so no earning an income locally and be really careful of overstaying. Investor visas are not so hard to come by compared to US (lower monetary bar) but you’ll still a handsome sum to get one.
- hrktb 8y ago
  > The hard part will be getting a landlord to accept your lease application It was 10 years ago, so I wonder how much the situation changed. For me this was a pretty severe issue. Below 120,000 yens/ month, even with a long term visa, years of residency and a stable employment covering 3x the monthly lease amount and a co-signing by a Japanese spouse, getting the landlord to even see the application was hard. We would show up at the agency, and whole swaths of offers would just be set apart under a 'no foreigner' policy, and the rest was direct negotiation with the landlord. Above 150,000 I felt we had more choice, but then we were into mildly premium territory.
  - laurieg 8y ago
    Housing discrimination is a very real issue even today. Large swathes of properties have a "No foreigners" policy. One of the most shocking experiences I had in Japan was when I went with my friend to go house hunting and had to sit through the estate agent calling different apartment owners and try to plead his case. Some of the owners asked things like "What does he look like?". When I got my current apartment in Japan I thanked the estate agent profusely and said that he'd been a great help and that it's often difficult to find a good place. He said "No worries, you're not Chinese like him!" gesturing towards a Chinese customer sitting on the other side of the shop. The flipside of this is that when you're in you have a lot of rights as a tenant.
m3at 8y ago
Personal breakdown in an area at cycling distance from a big banking center (Otemachi): - 1 bedroom in a quiet neighborhood, small designer appartement: $1100/mo - 1G fiber: $23/mo (special 1 year price, need to change vendor yearly, ~$40 otherwise. Search on kakaku) - monthly expenses: $400 restaurants & groceries, $100 subway (Source : I've been living in Japan for two years)
- Bartweiss 8y ago
  What's the tax situation like? When I was first starting out I ran into a few opportunities in Japan, but it looked like the salaries were very thin compared to expenses. (US $40-50k starting.) I never got as far as looking into Tokyo taxes, but for entry-level work it seems like they'd make the difference between awkward (>1/3 income on rent) and concerning (>1/2 income on rent).
  - m3at 8y ago
    Salaries are indeed low on average for locals, but are much higher for the kind of jobs westerners get in tech. Taxes are high for corporations, not that high for individuals usually below a quarter of your salary, including insurance, pensions and local and national taxes. Overall Japan is not the country to go to if you want to maximise your salary.
laurieg 8y ago
Not Tokyo but another major city in Japan (Fukuoka): Rent and bills for a 1 bedroom 1 kitchen room apartment: 500 USD Fiber connection: 40 USD Food: 200-300 USD Transport: 100 USD or less ( I walk to work). Office space(1-3 person) subsidised by the city: 200 USD All in all very liveable.

Aeolun 8y ago

* 2 bedroom in cool neighborhood: $2100/month * office space (3 people) somewhere central, shared facilities, private office: $2000/month * residential gigabit (min 1 year contract): $60/month * food for one month, either eating out or buying decent groceries and cooking: $800/month --- Those are off the top of my head. I'm not very interested in living in a cool neighborhood and rent where I live is more like $1400 (office space is presumably correspondingly lower).

rc_hadoken 8y ago
Way more affordable than I thought. I'm guessing the office space is split and a 1bedroom is 1300~?
WhompingWindows 8y ago
Sounds similar to Providence, RI regarding expenses. I'd wager a similar lifestyle in Boston, MA would go for $1k more than what you've listed, finding a 2 BR in a cool neighborhood of Boston area is probably going to be $3k or more.
vorpalhex 8y ago
How do restaurant prices compare to grocery prices typically? Do folks tend to go out as often as they do in the US?
- 0xCMP 8y ago
  Just came back from a trip and most restaurant prices match the US in cities. Cheaper places go for around $6-7/meal. Most end up being around $20/meal (+/- 5). Obviously cooking at home or snacking ($1-3/snack) from convince stores lowers that amount. Most prices include tax and there is never a tip.

throwaway-jp 8y ago

Fiber to the home (ftth) is dead cheap here, only about US$50 (¥6500) for 1Gbps unmetered. Rent for a cheap 2LDK really depends on how far to the station, how new, etc. As a bachelor you could get a nice 50-60sqm 2 room plus Living/Dining/Kitchen in Yoyogi for ¥150,000-200,000 per month. The hard part will be getting a landlord to accept your lease application without being hired by a local company. Rent guarantee companies can be used to avoid having to find a Japanese guarantor. Serviced apartments run by foreign companies will be large and well positioned, but start around ¥500,000 per month. A short term stay in an AirBnB of 2-3 months might be possible, but you’ll only be able to get a tourist visa, so no earning an income locally and be really careful of overstaying. Investor visas are not so hard to come by compared to US (lower monetary bar) but you’ll still a handsome sum to get one.

hrktb 8y ago
> The hard part will be getting a landlord to accept your lease application It was 10 years ago, so I wonder how much the situation changed. For me this was a pretty severe issue. Below 120,000 yens/ month, even with a long term visa, years of residency and a stable employment covering 3x the monthly lease amount and a co-signing by a Japanese spouse, getting the landlord to even see the application was hard. We would show up at the agency, and whole swaths of offers would just be set apart under a 'no foreigner' policy, and the rest was direct negotiation with the landlord. Above 150,000 I felt we had more choice, but then we were into mildly premium territory.
- laurieg 8y ago
  Housing discrimination is a very real issue even today. Large swathes of properties have a "No foreigners" policy. One of the most shocking experiences I had in Japan was when I went with my friend to go house hunting and had to sit through the estate agent calling different apartment owners and try to plead his case. Some of the owners asked things like "What does he look like?". When I got my current apartment in Japan I thanked the estate agent profusely and said that he'd been a great help and that it's often difficult to find a good place. He said "No worries, you're not Chinese like him!" gesturing towards a Chinese customer sitting on the other side of the shop. The flipside of this is that when you're in you have a lot of rights as a tenant.

m3at 8y ago

Personal breakdown in an area at cycling distance from a big banking center (Otemachi): - 1 bedroom in a quiet neighborhood, small designer appartement: $1100/mo - 1G fiber: $23/mo (special 1 year price, need to change vendor yearly, ~$40 otherwise. Search on kakaku) - monthly expenses: $400 restaurants & groceries, $100 subway (Source : I've been living in Japan for two years)

Bartweiss 8y ago
What's the tax situation like? When I was first starting out I ran into a few opportunities in Japan, but it looked like the salaries were very thin compared to expenses. (US $40-50k starting.) I never got as far as looking into Tokyo taxes, but for entry-level work it seems like they'd make the difference between awkward (>1/3 income on rent) and concerning (>1/2 income on rent).
- m3at 8y ago
  Salaries are indeed low on average for locals, but are much higher for the kind of jobs westerners get in tech. Taxes are high for corporations, not that high for individuals usually below a quarter of your salary, including insurance, pensions and local and national taxes. Overall Japan is not the country to go to if you want to maximise your salary.

laurieg 8y ago

Not Tokyo but another major city in Japan (Fukuoka): Rent and bills for a 1 bedroom 1 kitchen room apartment: 500 USD Fiber connection: 40 USD Food: 200-300 USD Transport: 100 USD or less ( I walk to work). Office space(1-3 person) subsidised by the city: 200 USD All in all very liveable.