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[JimDunlop2]

I recently finished adding an entry to my Blog... I was talking about some of the ins & outs of renting an apartment or house in Japan.

After I finished, I thought to myself that may some folks on Dave's might find it interesting or useful. If it is neither, I apologize in advance for the digital pollution. It's written in a very narrative style and I've included many personal experiences. So, if you're into this kind of article, you may glean some useful info or if not, just laugh at our predicaments or whatever.

So, here it is -- more or less intact. Now before some of you start yelling and screaming about the accuracy of my piece, let me just introduce it by saying that I appreciate corrections or addenda but just keep in mind that this is only one man's account: my own. Your results may vary, (as might those of your friends and co-workers) and the city in which you live may be different enough from mine to make my information somewhat inaccurate. But this is what I am going through/have gone through just recently.

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The next major event currently occurring in our lives is moving! Yes, after two years living in the same apartment, it looks like it's time to pack up and move into another place.

"For the love of all that's good.. WHY?!?!"

Well, things in Japan (especially whatever is related to renting accommodations) are very different than in North America. In an earlier Blog (or in my coming-to-Japan notes on my website, I forgot which), I may have mentioned the procedure involved in finding and moving into a Japanese apartment or rental accommodation. For the sake of those who have no idea what I'm talking about, I will digress briefly to provide a primer to this mysterious, and frequently frustrating topic...


First of all, it should be understood that Japan is one of the few countries in the world where buying a house is just as much of an investment opportunity as buying a car: they both depreciate. Yes, that is correct, folks. If you build a house, mortgage it and try to sell it in 10 to 25 years, there is no way you will ever get the amount you purchased it for! If you disbelieve me, check out this website: ( http://www.japaninc.net/newsletters/?list=fw&issue=49 ). As strange as this may sound, I think it is largely due to the Japanese disdain for anything "old" or "used." Sure, the price of the land may increase (though it is definitely offset by the depreciating house that sits on it) but when/if it's finally time to get rid of real estate, it's much more common to "renovate" the house. In Japan, "renovation" really means bulldozing the old structure and erecting a brand new one. Last year, one of our neighbours "renovated" their house this way. The other options are either to pass it down to the children and keep the property in the family, or abandon the house and move elsewhere. The last option is also very common. The country seems to be virtually littered with houses and small apartments of all sizes and shapes that have fallen into disrepair, but no one wishes to fix (remember, it's still an "old" house -- even if you redo the interior and exterior) so no one will wish to move there, or the money involved in demolishing the old structure is more than paying property taxes on it.

Such paradoxes make house (or apartment) hunting frustrating but on many occasions work out in the favour of the tenant. One common method of finding a new place to live is to simply walk (or drive) through neighbourhoods where you would like to live and look for houses that look either vacant or abandoned. This is so common, you will easily end up with several prospects in a matter of hours. Next, ask the neighbours or local grandparents you see wandering about if they know who lives in the house in question, and if nobody, who the landlord/owner is. The Japanese word for "landlord" is 'oyasan.' In an ideal situation you may walk away with a name and phone number of the oyasan whom you can then phone and ask if they would consider renting the house to you. If they are open-minded enough to not mind renting a place to "gaikokujin" (foreigners) there is a pretty good chance that you will walk off with a much nicer deal than the other option, which is to hire a realtor.

In Japan, real estate agencies are very different from North American ones. We are used to having realtors only deal with selling/buying residential properties, whereas the bulk of the Japanese market lies in renting -- something that is usually restricted to only commercial spaces in North America. 90% of the time, unless you have the time/patience/language skills/bargain-hunting motivation to find your own place in the method I described above, (there are no "for rent" ads in the local newspapers -- at least none that I can understand) you will have to approach a real estate agency (Japanese: "fudousan") to help you find accommodations. It is very helpful to learn the kanji for fudousan as that is what you will see on the street sign. More common is to see a storefront literally wallpapered with empty house photos and prices but not always. My realtor, for instance, has no such ads out in front of his shop.

In North America, costs involved in hiring a real estate agent (commission) are usually the responsibility of the seller, not the buyer. Occasionally, closing costs are negotiated between buyer and seller with the details worked out by the lawyers... In Japan, the opposite is true. When you rent any given place, it is customary to pay the equivalent of one month's rent to the realtor in commission fees.

Then, like in North America, you are expected to pay a security deposit (also called a damage deposit in some areas) to the landlord. In Japanese, the word is "shikikin." (Also, very useful to learn this kanji. Then you can read how much it is from the picture ad). Where I'm from, (by law) the maximum amount for a damage deposit is no more than one month's rent. In Japan, there is no such requirement, hence the average deposit amount is two month's rent, although deviation from the norm in either direction is certainly possible. Then, another strange little cultural anomaly is something called, "reikin" in Japanese. Literally translated, it means "reward money" or "deep thank-you money," but most commonly translated into English as "key money." This is essentially a bribe you pay to the landlord to "thank him/her" for their generosity in renting you their building. This is also usually one month's rent but again, deviations from this are possible (though not usual). If anything, key money is slowly falling by the wayside as nowadays Japan is a tenant's market and there are much more vacant spaces than people to fill them so more and more landlords are discovering that they can attract prospective renters much quicker by omitting this "thank you fee" even though it's money for nothing -- money you will never see again. Your damage deposit will suffer the same fate, by the way. You are technically supposed to receive your damage deposit back (at least in part) but so far I have not heard of any who have had such fortune. If you do get money back after you move out -- great!! Lucky you! But I wouldn't count on count it. Treat that money as gone for good because the odds are not in your favour.

Anyway, the history of reikin as it was explained to me, stems back from the era immediately following the second world war, when housing was scarce, and this shortage resulted in the Japanese custom of offering "gifts" in exchange for favours becoming a national institution that has stuck around until now. I mean, let's face it, why would a landlord say "no" to free money for doing absolutely nothing?

So, have you been keeping a running total in your head? If not, let me summarize it for you. That was: 1 month's rent for the realtor's commission, two month's damage deposit, one month's key money, and don't forget the first month's rent when you move in. All of this equals about 5 month's rent just to get into a place. Now, there are some other odds and ends that must be taken care of. If you want cable TV, you will likely have to pay an additional 3,000 yen a month -- and this may not be an optional charge if your apartment is listed as having "CATV included." Then, if you are moving into a house (rather than an apartment) there's a good chance you may have to pay community association fees of about 2,000 yen. This is not unlike condominium fees back home. They also serve similar functions as well. Then, unless it's a house, you will likely pay parking fees if you own a vehicle. 5,000 yen is a standard sum where I live.
So let's summarize again. Startup costs: 5 month's rent, plus an additional 5-10,000 yen per month for other expenses. Let's assume you are considering an apartment that's about 50,000 yen per month for rent. (In Canadian dollars, that's about $568) . This, by the way is on the low end of the rent spectrum. (In larger cities like Osaka or Tokyo, add at least 20 or 30,000 more). Add an additional 5,000 yen for cable TV/community fees or parking, making it about 55,000. Multiply that by 5, and the grand total is.......(drum roll please)..... 275,000 yen ($3125 CDN)! That's no small change! We were lucky that when we arrived, the company that hired us worked out all the paperwork with our realtor and lent us the money to get the apartment, which we repaid to our employer on a monthly installment basis over six months. So, why are we moving? Let me explain.

The usual contract term for renting a place in Japan is two years. After two years you are expected to either re-contract for another two-year term, or vacate the premises. The former is much more common than the latter for obvious reasons, as finding a new location would require paying all the aforementioned fees all over again... Fortunately, many people (especially foreigners) have gotten wise to this and as uncustomary as the concept of "bargaining" is to most Japanese, it seems to be prevalent in the real estate industry. You can easily haggle back and forth for quite some time with the landlord, with the realtor as the middle-man, as to whether you can get the place you want for a discounted monthly rental rate or a reduction in key money or deposit fees. When we were first shown our apartment, the landlord wanted 67,000 yen for rent. Our manager (from work) offered 50,000 a month, which was accepted after brief deliberation. Better to accept 17,000 yen a month less than to risk not receiving ANY income for potentially a very long time. It's a renter's market, remember?

Well, our re-contracting time came and went. It actually was back in the beginning of March, but we were not informed of anything until the second week of May. We received a letter from our realtor, explaining that we would be required to pay 67,000 to re-contract for another two years. This fee, apparently, covers the cost of property taxes and whatnot for the landlord. Needless to say, we were less than impressed as we didn't know this before. If we had, we would have been saving up for this fee. On the bright side, we could have ended up paying a lot more, as in many places it's also common to pay another round of reikin (key money) for the new two-year term. Best to ask these things before you sign any paperwork, by the way.

Nevertheless, I would not have been so reluctant to dish out the cash if it hadn't been for our miserable neighbours making our stay a lot more troublesome. To summarize quickly, we've got a next-door neighbour with a dog (in a no-pets-allowed building) that craps all over the walkway to our apartment because they tend to keep their front door open quite often, which lets the dog out. The stupid mutt also barks for hours on end, even with our neighbours being at home. It just isn't a priority to them to get their dog to stop barking. Also, these people have kept a junk-heap next to their apartment door for the past two years. We're talking bags of empty cans for recycling, gasoline canisters, tools, garbage, flower pots, boxes, and assorted junk just piled up in a large, nasty heap. All our complaints to them and the landlord have gone completely unheeded. The only complaint that the landlord ever listened to from us was to stop the neighbours from parking a huge construction-area dump truck in front of the apartment, not only causing a eyesore, but narrowing an already ridiculously narrow street. Downstairs, we have some crying colicky babies and the older ones play basketball in the house: thump-a-thump-a-thump-a.... at all hours. Since many Japanese people get up very early, by six a.m. (which is even early for me -- I get up at seven) I've got washing machines running, doors slamming, TVs blaring, people shouting, dogs barking, cats in heat yowling, babies crying, people beating out their futons on the balcony railing, trains rumbling though, truck back-up beepers beeping, delivery truck arriving all while I'm trying to catch that last hour of sleep before waking up. On the weekends it gets more interesting. Then, in addition to all of the above, I've got trucks with loudspeakers selling stuff door-to-door playing marching music, firecrackers going off (to mark off the hour -- every hour) and kids playing outside, since they don't have to go to school.

Anyway, I've digressed. My point was, that I really did not feel like I was getting my 67,000 yen's worth paying for all of these crazy little annoyances that seem to have added up over the past two years. I explained this to my realtor, in the hopes of arriving at some sort of understanding to either action some of the things that could be dealt with, such as the dog crapping and barking issue, or offering some kind of discount on the re-contracting fee. A friend told us that his friend had been presented with a re-contracting fee, to which this fellow just said, "in that case, I'm just going to move out." The realtor very quickly dropped the issue and said, not to worry about it -- they would rather have him stay than leave. I guess results in this regard may vary. I've been also told by others that re-contracting fees should not be so high -- frequently they are only about 1/2 a month's rent or so.

When I mentioned some of this to my realtor in Japanese, (through an exceedingly polite Japanese lady friend of ours) , the realtor told us that we should still pay half of the re-contracting fee if we decided to move out. Until this time, though, the boss of the realty hadn't been present for the earlier conversation so when he walked in he didn't quite know exactly what was going on -- but he did have SOME idea, as when he entered the room and saw me sitting there with my Japanese translator, he muttered to himself in Japanese that was still audible enough for us to catch, "Aww, man... Must be those bloody neighbours again...." Anyway, when he was caught up to speed on the full situation, he pointed out that they had sent me a re-contracting letter back in February, which I can authoritatively deny having received. At this point I went into "irate foreigner" mode and just about lost my nuggets and started screaming. I exhibited some restraint, but not enough to stop me from raising my voice, glaring and starting to speak angrily in English - very, very quickly. I demanded to know why nobody had contacted me IF indeed they had sent a letter to me back in February and I hadn't replied. I said that in any normal country that was running any normal business would follow up if they hadn't heard back for three months. I told him very directly that I was calling his bluff, and that the only letter I had ever received was the one from last week, and he could rest assured that if I had gotten his earlier letter, I would have been in his office complaining long before this. All of this was dramatically enacted for him in a mix of my angry, bad Japanese, mixed in with my translator's good Japanese, and me telling my translator to try and use "more rude" language in expressing my ideas, instead of the usual, hyper-polite keigo (honorific Japanese). The boss of the firm, obviously intimidated, just put on the biggest, cat-swallowed-a-canary grin he could muster, and kept saying not to worry, that we would work something out and that he would "take my situation under consideration." When we returned a few days later to give formal notice of moving out, the situation was all but resolved. It seems that my "suggestion" of merely paying a pro-rated amount of the re-contracting fee, representative of how many months beyond March was reasonable enough by their reckoning and would be "sufficient." We also asked when we should move out by, and the realtor said that if we gave a month's notice, everything would be alright. So, we notified them that June would be our last month and that we'd be moving out by the end of it.

Well, that makes our June a ridiculously busy month! Fortunately we don't have a lot of furniture and heavy items... The move will be within the city so actual "packing into boxes" will be minimal. I'd say most things will just get loaded into our van, and unloaded at our destination which is still in the works.

As a couple of endnotes (that were not included in my original Blog) I did not talk about a guarantor anywhere, but in Japan you pretty much *must* have a guarantor in order to move into your place. Most of the time this is not an issue as employers are most commonly used for this purpose. If, for whatever reason you cannot use your employer, then you will have to come up with an alternative option. But absolutely no one waltzes into a realty office in Japan and rents an apartment without a guarantor.

Next, on the issue of houses and apartments (flats for you British-English types)... Let me give you a quick overview of the terms involved when you visit a realty office.

Apartment: Japanese: apaato. Multiple-tenant dwelling. Just like back home. It can be as small as 4 units, or much bigger. All apaatos are wood construction... They tend to be a somewhat cheaper option than their siblings: mansions (see below). The downside to apaatos is that they are usually poorly insulated against sound and you can hear everything your neighbours are doing at all times.

Mansion: The same as an aparment but ferro-concrete construction. Much quieter, and probably bigger too. Most high-rise apartments tend to be listed as a mansion.

ikodate: single family house. This is a free-standing building. It can be single or two story but you have no neighbours living in the same building as you.

ikenya: co-op housing. Same as the above but the individual houses are all located in a central "complex." All the houses in the complex tend to be identical. Advantage: can be cheaper than an ikodate. Disadvantage: houses are usually very close together and very often one neighbour will have a dozen or so kids, and the guy on the other side of you will be revving his Harley at all hours of the night, and the guy next to that will be blasting J-pop from his car stereo in his lowered, American-drive, fluorescant ground-effects, pimped-out ride. And the family next to that will have underwear permanently affixed to their clothesline, with bags upon bags of gomi (garbage) around their house. The houses also tend to be more dilapidated... But an ikenya should not be ruled out. You may find a nice complex and a good landlord.

Availability (and costs): Varies highly. But generally speaking, mansions are the most commonly available but their prices tend to be somewhat higher than the apaato, which are almost as plentiful but usually a little cheaper (unless they are new or newly renovated). Ikodates and ikenyas are a lot more rare but they are certainly out there. That is the "game" you are hunting when you go out on your own. That's where you can walk away with some sweet, money deals. A friend of mine lives in an entire 5DK+ two-story house for 40,000 yen a month, with no deposit or key money down that he hunted down... Now that is an extreme example, but who knows -- you might get lucky. Also, expect that when you start poking about neighbourhoods asking neighbours for names and phone numbers of landlords, they might tell you "no" outright for the fear of having a foreigner move into their community, OR, much more commonly, you may just get referred to a realty that is dealing with the house you are interesting in (and its landlord). Not a horrible fate if you are in love with the house, just be prepared to bargain for the key money, deposit and rent prices to be lowered.

Another thing, if you are planning to house-hunt, tell ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE you know about it! Especially Japanese people. You'd be surprised how many people, (students, friends, co-workers, etc) will tell you, "Oh yeah.... I know a place near my house..." OR "My friend's cousin is a landlord. I'll ask him."

That's about all I can think of for now. Again, this isn't meant to be a comprehensive guide or anything, but it may be a jumping-off point for those of you who have considered finding a place that ISN'T a standard 1K flat that most private companies will put you up in. Additionally, if you are married or have a family, such a place would never suit, and your company will rarely, if ever have anything larger scoped out.

My final note is about company-sponsored housing and the ups and downs of choosing that over finding your own place. For some it's not even an issue, as company housing is often either mandatory or so heavily subsidized, you wouldn't be moving elsewhere even if you wanted to. For those where it IS a legitimate option, it may be in your favor to stick with it or not. The obvious advantages are, you will not have to deal with msicellaneous fees, recontracting, deposit, key money, and furnishing your place. As far as I know, most employers, when they hire teachers from abroad, supply basic furnishings in the accomodations they provide. For this reason, renting directly from your employer is usually a no-muss-no-fuss way to live. Obvious disadvantages: usually size. Also, the price you are paying (unless it's completely subsidized by your work -- rare nowadays) may not be anywhere near what the place is worth. As an example, my friend pays 45,000 yen a month for rent to the company that employs him, but his next door neighbour pays 35,000. The difference? The company has a policy that if you take company housing you will pay a flat rate of 45,000 yen a month, REGARDLESS of which building they house you in or how much rent is actually worth in the "outside world."

One of the biggest advantages of renting your own place is really for anyone who plans to live here for longer than a one-year stint, and possibly with multiple companies. As soon as you stop working for the company that provides you with housing, you will be expected to move out. Mind you, this is usually completely illegal (according to Japan's tenant and housing law) but you will still be under lots of pressure to give up your place immediately after you stop working for them. After all, they are likely going to be your guarantor and if you don't work there they exert no power over you if something goes awry. With your own place, you can move around freely without this sort of concern. You also have the freedom to change what needs changing, fix what needs fixing and otherwise buy (or not buy) whatever you want, not having a room full of junk from the previous teachers that belongs to the company that they may not let you get rid of.

On the other hand, when you find your own place, the most obvious disadvantage is the lack of furnishings. You will have to furnish your own place and buy appliances (like a fridge and stove). In fact, as it's been recently pointed out to me, important to note that an unfurnished apratment means just that. Unlike North America, there isn't even a light fixture. There are special "plug-ins" in the ceilings, into which you attach a special light fixture (and bulb -- but nowadays, usually a round fluorescent tube) that you buy at a "denki" electrical shop or hardware store. I would recommend, that if you are new in town, you ask the realtor basic questions, like where's the best place to buy this stuff. If you give them your business, you may even be able to convince them to help take you there to buy what you need. In the end, survival-level basics, you will need at least one light fixture, a gas range, some cooking utensils, and a fridge. I would also consider a microwave as pretty much survival-level. You can either go to a second-hand store for a lot of this, called a "recycle shop" but they don't always offer the best deals. Sometimes it's best to just buy new from a hardward store. In any event, count on spending at least 60,000 yen (by my estimate) for the most basic stuff that I just mentioned. Again, results may vary but you will definitely spend much more than that when you start getting stuff to sit on, a TV to watch, a washing machine, space heater, etc... Actually, I should have mentioned the space heater (most commonly one that burns kerosene) in the "bare essentials" column as the majority of Japanese houses or apartments have no central heating (or cooling). That's why air conditioning (pronounced: eh-ah-con in Japanese) is an important feature to look for on the realtor's summary sheet.

When I first moved here, my realtor actually "gave" me one light fixture and a gas range, and gave me a map to the nearest hardware store for the rest of the things I'd need. They even offered to drive me from the train station with all my luggage, to my new apartment. Now THAT's service for you. I wouldn't consider that an industry standard by any means, so don't count on it.... Just be glad if you happen to be so lucky.

I hope that some of this has been helpful to some. If you feel there are any omissions or errors in this article... sorry. If you have any questions about house-hunting, feel free to PM me... I'll do what I can to advise or help.

[Glenski]

Two things you may want to consider adding at some point in time.

1. The fact that unfurnished apartments mean TOTALLY unfurnished, from light fixtures to appliances.

2. The spelling of real estate agent is fudosan, not furosan (bathman?).

[JimDunlop2]

Thanks, Glenski. The erratum has been corrected and the addendum about the lack of furnishing has been added.

You're right. I don't want a bath man (maybe in Turkey). A realtor would be much more useful.

[ellethecat]

HI, yeah. thanks, I read it. Or I started to read it. Im sorry. the anecdotal nature of it wasnt for me. Doesnt this country have a simpler way to do things

[Celeste]

The simple way is not to be for most transactions in Japan. THe complicated way keeps people employed and prices artificially high.

[JimDunlop2]

Yeah, sorry -- I know narrative style doesn't do it for everyone... Maybe one of these days I can be convinced to write a "how-to" guide that's short and concise.

But the bare bones info is this:

You have 2 choices: find your own place (either by yourself, through friends, co-workers or friends of friends) so you don't have to deal with a realtor. Much cheaper, but also much more unlikely to be successful.

Second, go through a realtor, but be prepared to pay at least some fees. You probably won't get away from the realtor's commission, and if the standard 2 month deposit 1 month key money formula applies, expect to pay at least 1 month of SOMETHING -- bare minimum.

To answer your question (from the other thread) directly, yes -- key money and other assorted fees ARE falling by the wayside, but true to Japanese fashion, not so quickly. It CAN be had, but be prepared to hunt long and hard because places with no key money and only 1 month's deposit are truly few and far-in-between.... At least unless you live in a larger city...

No, I suppose nothing is simple in this country, and finding a place to live, unfortunately, is one of the more bureaucratic things you will ever do in Japan. On the upside, once you've done it and look back, it doesn't seem so bad and you are happy to be in a place you chose and like.

If anyone has any specific questions in regards to any of this stuff, they can PM me.

Cheers.

[moot point]

How is the bias towards dealing with foreigners nowadays at realtors?

I'm living in subsidised housing now so haven't had to deal with realtors for the past seven years. When I first came to Japan, however, most fudo-san wouldn't even deal with me. I looked hard and long until I could find a realtor who would even invite me into their office. Is it still the same?

[Glenski]

[JimDunlop2]

moot point: Well, individual results may vary I suppose, but I didn't have a single fudo-san turn me away. I think that since the collapse of the bubble and the increasing recession, it really has become a buyer's market.

There are many more residences than people in Japan right now. In fact, I was just recently reading some statistics on this (I'll be damned if I can remember where it was) and they said that if you take just the raw numbers, there are 1.1 residences per person in Japan.

I did have a few oyasans turn me away, but only maybe one or two.

Typically, when I walked into a fudosan's office, they were very friendly, had me fill out an application form (in Japanese) that asked me what I was looking for and where and whether I had pets or children or cars, etc... They would then pull out a bunch of data sheets on places which I would peruse and shortlist. The realtor would then take the shortlisted sheets, and call the oyasans. The typical conversation went something like this.

REALTOR: Moshi-moshi.... (all in Japanese, of course).... This is Mr. Kobayashi from Fujiya Realty. Am I speaking with Miss Naito?... Yes?... Great... I would like to show your house this afternoon, I have an interested couple.... Although they are foreigners (gaikokujin....), they are good foreigners. The husband is a Junior High School teacher who works for the city at the Board of Education and his wife is an English teacher at the YMCA.....

(At this point, the conversation would take a turn in one of two directions):

1. Yes.... Yes.... Yes.... Yes... Yes... Uh huh.... Ok... Right. Yes, I understand. Well, thank you very much for all your trouble and I am most sorry for having bothered you. Thank you again. Goodbye.

TO ME: I'm sorry, but they've just rented out that place to somebody so it's no longer vacant.

2. Yes.... Yes.... Yes.... Yes... Yes... Uh huh.... Ok... Right. In that case, can we meet you at the house in about 15 minutes?.... Wonderful... See you then.

TO ME: Ok, let's go take a look at a couple places.


#2, happily for me, was a far more common occurance than #1, which happened, like I said, maybe only once or twice.

The only thing to keep in mind is that 99% of the fudo-sans who are uncomfortable dealing with foreigners are that way because they don't speak English and are afraid that they won't be able to communicate properly. If you walk in the door speaking some Japanese, say that you are interested in renting a place and answer the basic set of questions they will ask you in Japanese, it will put them completely at ease and it's usually smooth sailing from there. Otherwise, I'd recommend going in with a fluent or native Japanese friend.

In large cities like Tokyo or Osaka there are actually realty firms that specifically cater to foreigners (in that they have English-speaking staff and even foreign managers), and will often not offer places that require key money or high deposits. However, the key word here is caveat emptor. There is one company that has a REALLY bad reputation for ripping off foreigners and making their lives completely miserable! Do some research before you enter into a contract..... See the following article here: http://www.japantraveler.com/issues/0006/fontana.html

Another good article to read on key money and changing customs in Japanese culture is THIS:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/print/features/media2004/fd20041031pb.htm

It's a Japan Times article called, Daylight robbery -- and we accept it.

[JimDunlop2]

[quote="Glenski"]

[Gordon]

[quote="JimDunlop2"]

[Glenski]

[Gordon]

But then you must have insulation. No one could survive in Hokkaido in the types of houses found in southern Japan. Sometimes 2 inch thick walls on the outside and a tin roof.

[ellethecat]

[Glenski]

Perhaps, Gordon, but how does that explain the difference between apartments in my home country with those that JimDunlop had? Answer: variation all over the world.