The market is competitive, though, and there's a lot of places offering zero-reikin (礼金), or if they don't, are willing to negotiate. Especially if you look du

The market is competitive, though, and there's a lot of places offering zero-reikin (礼金), or if they don't, are willing to negotiate. Especially if you look during the off-season when nobody is moving; for those that don't know, almost everything in Japan is seasonal, from new-graduate hiring to apartment-hunting. This is changing, but bucking the trend can save you some serious money. You'll still have to hunt to find something good, but I'm willing to spend some evening and weekend time to save myself enough cash to purchase all new appliances. For example, my current place took almost a month to find, but was zero-deposit, zero-reikin, and came with a free month of rent. I'm in central Tokyo, so I cough up $1300 USD/month in rent for a whopping thirty-five square meters, but the convenience is very much worth it.