When I bought my first Tokyo studio 15 years ago, I paid a month of key money, a month of deposit, and a month to the agent before I ever got the keys. Three years later, when I picked up a small rental house two hours outside the city, the landlord waved off key money entirely and only asked for a half-month deposit. Same country, same rental law on paper, completely different customs on the ground. Running 9 properties split between an urban core and two rural prefectures has taught me that “how renting works in Japan” is really two or three different systems wearing the same name.
If you’re screening tenants, setting rent, or budgeting turnover costs, the region you’re operating in changes almost every number that matters. Here’s what I’ve actually seen change between city and countryside, property by property.
Key Money (Reikin) Survives Mostly in Cities
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Reikin, the non-refundable “thank you gift” to the landlord, is still standard on about 70% of the Tokyo-area units I’ve managed or watched closely, usually one month’s rent. Out in my rural holdings, I’ve collected reikin on exactly one lease in the last 8 years, and even then it was only half a month. Rural landlords in a shrinking-population area simply can’t afford to add friction; vacancy there can run 4 to 6 months if a unit sits empty, so anything that speeds up signing wins. In Tokyo, where I’ve had a 1LDK re-rent within 12 days of the old tenant leaving, demand absorbs the extra cost without a fight.
Deposits and Move-In Costs Scale With Local Demand
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My Tokyo units run a fairly consistent formula: one month deposit, one month key money, one month agent fee, plus roughly 15,000 to 25,000 yen in cleaning and lock-change fees. Total move-in cost lands near 3.5x monthly rent. My rural properties average closer to 1.5x, because the deposit is often the only real charge. I once had a rural tenant move in for under 90,000 yen all-in on a property renting for 55,000 yen a month; the same rent in a comparable Tokyo neighborhood would have needed closer to 190,000 yen up front. If you’re underwriting cash flow on a new purchase, use the local formula, not the national average u2014 I made that mistake on my second property and overestimated first-year cash by nearly 300,000 yen.
Guarantor Requirements Diverge Sharply
Tokyo tenant screening has moved almost entirely to paid guarantor companies over the past decade; on my urban units, 100% of new leases since 2021 have gone through one, typically costing the tenant 50% of one month’s rent as an annual or one-time fee. In my rural areas, roughly half my tenants still bring a personal guarantor, usually a parent or employer, because the community is small enough that landlords personally know the family or the workplace. That familiarity cuts both ways: rural evictions and unpaid-rent situations get resolved faster through direct conversation, but I also can’t hide behind a guarantor company’s collections process when things go bad.
Vacancy Timelines and Renewal Fees
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Average days-to-re-rent on my Tokyo units sits around 18 days. My rural units average 95 days, and one house in a town with population decline took 7 months to fill. That gap changes how aggressively I negotiate renewal fees (koshinryo). In Tokyo I hold firm on the standard one-month renewal fee at the two-year mark because a tenant who balks can be replaced quickly. In rural properties I’ve waived the renewal fee outright on 3 separate leases just to avoid restarting a multi-month vacancy clock u2014 losing one month of fee income is far cheaper than losing 3 months of rent.
What Actually Changes By Region u2014 A Quick Checklist
- Key money: common in Tokyo (roughly 1 month), rare to absent in most rural markets
- Move-in total: about 3.5x rent in Tokyo vs. 1.5x to 2x in rural areas
- Guarantor: paid company standard in Tokyo, personal guarantor still common rurally
- Vacancy period: 2 to 3 weeks urban vs. 3 to 7 months rural
- Renewal fee leverage: strong in Tokyo, negotiable-to-waived in low-demand rural markets
- Repair response expectations: faster turnaround demanded in cities, more patience (and more DIY opportunity) in the countryside
Renovation and Maintenance Norms Differ Too
City tenants expect a fast professional fix; I’ve had Tokyo tenants message twice in 24 hours about a slow drain. In my rural units, tenants are far more tolerant of a landlord doing the repair himself over a weekend, which is exactly why I do most of my own plumbing and drywall work out there u2014 nobody’s expecting a contractor van by Tuesday. On the flip side, rural renovation materials often cost 10 to 15% more once you add delivery, since the nearest hardware supplier is sometimes 40 minutes away rather than the 8-minute trip I get in the city.
None of this means one market is better than the other u2014 Tokyo gives me speed and pricing power, the rural properties give me lower entry cost and steadier long-term tenants once they’re in. Knowing which rulebook applies to which property is what keeps me from setting the wrong price or panicking over a vacancy that’s actually normal for that area. That’s the calculation I run every time I add a tenth property to the mix.
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15 years of landlord experience u00b7 3 apartment buildings u00b7 DIY renovations that saved millions of yen. Browse all articles at diytosan.com
