‘No foreign tenants’ – and not much you can do about it

‘No foreign tenants’ — and not much you can do about it

Landlords are within their rights to refuse to rent to foreign residents, but services are stepping in to bridge the gap

By Magdalena Osumi, staff writer

With the potential tenant having made her decision after much careful deliberation, a real estate agent in Tokyo calls a property management company to check whether the 30-square-meter apartment in western Tokyo is vacant.

“Would the landlord mind having a foreign tenant?” the agent asks, and after a brief conversation, he looks across at the house-hunter, frowns sympathetically and crosses his fingers to form an X before hanging up. “Gaikokujin dame” (“No foreigners”), he explains, is the reason for the denial.

Nearly 40 percent of foreign residents who have looked for housing within their past five years in Japan have been through this soul-destroying experience of rejection, according to a recent Justice Ministry survey of non-Japanese living in the country.

The Japan Times asked expats to share their experiences of house hunting, and also approached some real estate brokers to find out why Japanese property owners so often refuse to rent to foreign residents. Are their decisions based on racial prejudice or could there be any valid reasons to justify landlords’ aversion to foreign tenants?

While some experts and real estate industry insiders said that some non-Japanese contribute to the status quo by disregarding the rules, others condemned what they saw as renters’ blanket refusal to consider foreign tenants due to the behavior of a few — or even based on mere rumors of such behavior.

Indiscriminate discrimination

Rent application denial was the most rampant form of prejudicial treatment cited by respondents in Japan’s first nationwide survey of discrimination against foreign residents.

The survey was sent out to 18,500 non-Japanese of various nationalities living in 37 municipalities across the nation at the end of 2016. A total of 4,252 individuals — or 23 percent of those sent the survey — provided valid responses. Of the 2,044 who had applied to rent apartments over the preceding five years, 39.3 percent said they had been denied because they were not Japanese.

The Japan Times canvassed foreign residents about their experiences, and of 63 readers who responded, 52 — or 82.5 percent — said they had been told or were convinced that their nationalities were the reason for a rental refusal. Only six had no such experience. Among those denied rental were applicants with one Japanese parent, spouses of Japanese nationals and even those with decades of work experience in Japan and permanent residency.

Wayne Arnold, a 30-year-old tenured associate professor of American studies at the University of Kitakyushu, said he had been denied the chance to see some apartments even though the real estate agent informed the owner about his occupation.

Ahmed, 30, who spoke on condition that his last name and North African country of origin be withheld, said his application was rejected after he submitted various documents containing information on his employment and income. He has a Ph.D. in engineering and works for an international company in Tokyo.

“In reality, even if you are highly skilled, with money, with a good job, there’s at least 60 or 70 percent … of the apartments that remain out of reach just because I am a foreigner,” he said in an email.

Meanwhile, Charles Kennedy, an American in his 20s, was looking for an apartment in April together with his Vietnamese partner, an engineer working with a Japanese e-commerce giant.

He recalls having been told through a real estate agent: “The American is OK, but we won’t accept a Vietnamese.”

Three days after the couple found a suitable apartment and submitted a rental application, the agent contacted them to inform them that the owners had rejected their application and chosen a single Japanese woman instead.

“I was a bit disappointed, but more than anything we were both just annoyed and frustrated. Needing to prepare all this extra paperwork or making sure we have a Japanese guarantor is a lot more difficult for foreigners than most Japanese people seem to realize,” Kennedy said. “We both have the funds to support ourselves. In the end it is just tiring and makes Japan feel all the more unwelcoming of us.”

Why landlords deny

Masayuki Yokote, manager of the land ministry’s Housing Support Division, says that in a recent survey of Japan Property Management Association members, 60 percent of respondents said they were reluctant to accept foreign tenants. The association represented 1,321 companies handling some 5 million properties as of April 2016. Just over 16 percent of respondents refused to accept foreigners, period.

Toshiyuki Nagai, a spokesman for a strategic business unit at Housecom Corp.’s headquarters in Tokyo’s Minato Ward, said that many landlords have long seen communication problems with foreign tenants as the main cause of disputes and troubles in the neighborhood.

“Communication issues between tenants and landlords or with neighbors often lead to deeper problems,” he said, adding that many landlords assume all foreign nationals are unable to understand information explained or written in Japanese.

As a 30-something Polish woman with near-native fluency in Japanese and over a decade’s experience living in Japan, I visited five real estate agencies in the cities of Tokyo, Saitama and Kawasaki.

All of the brokers, when they contacted property handlers to check vacancies, said that owners prioritized language skills, as they are crucial for ensuring smooth communication between the tenant and the landlord. However, my language skills, employment with a local company and time spent living in Japan failed to win over three out of 20 property managers contacted by the agents, who wouldn’t consider me as a potential tenant.

Housecom’s Nagai said that landlords complain about foreigners’ attitudes, claiming that many of them disobey local garbage rules and, for instance, directly dispose of cooking oil into the sink, transgressions that mean landlords have to intervene.

Real estate agents also said landlords complained about foreign tenants violating rental contract conditions. About 57 percent of members who responded to the JPMA’s survey expressed concerns about late rent payments from non-Japanese tenants. Incidentally, this also topped the list of concerns related to elderly or disabled Japanese tenants.

One in four respondents feared that foreign tenants would let in strangers, while only about 16 percent said they were concerned about communication troubles.

“Delinquency in payment is less common among foreign nationals than Japanese,” countered Housecom’s Nagai. “Apparently many of them are aware that causing trouble would cost them their place to live, and know how hard finding a new one would be.” Nagai says that in his experience, “when troubles occur, they are mostly caused by different lifestyles.”

Asked about landlords’ hostility toward foreign tenants, a broker from Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward revealed that some owners changed their policies following the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. He said many foreign tenants vacated their apartments amid uncertainty surrounding the Fukushima nuclear disaster and returned to their countries, leaving their belongings behind in their apartments. Some owners complained they had been left without any information about who to contact and how to return the tenants’ belongings.

Real estate agents also admitted that many landlords are prejudiced against people from Asian countries. One broker from the city of Saitama said that there was a tendency for tenants from some Asian communities to sneak in unauthorized tenants. He also recalled the case of an Asian tenant who, despite having good Japanese skills, pretended not to understand when it came to his landlord intervening over a sink overflow.

A 29-year-old German citizen of Taiwanese descent who requested his name be withheld said he had been denied a chance to visit nearly half of the apartments he was interested in renting back in early 2015. “Joe” works as an engineer at a large Japanese firm in western Tokyo. When he was looking for a new apartment to move into with his Japanese wife, who is of Chinese ancestry, the landlord rejected the application after noticing that his father-in-law’s last name was Chinese.

Joe’s father-in-law works as a professor at a top Japanese university and has been living in the country for around 30 years, “but this is of course not taken into consideration,” he said. He added that the agent “expressed his regret and told us that the landlord does not accept tenants related to China in any way.”

Several companies, including Mitsubishi Fudosan Co., Century 21 Japan Ltd. and Saitama Prefecture-based real estate broker Bridge Life Ltd., which offers services for foreign nationals, would not speak on the record about their agreements with landlords and their demands or declined to redirect the phone call to the relevant subsidiary.

Housecom’s Nagai, however, said that the common practice of disqualifying potential customers because they are not Japanese “also affects our business.” He pointed out that a large proportion of landlords are elderly — even in their 80s — and that some sow fear among their contemporaries by sharing their failed experiences with foreign tenants and gossipping.

Unnecessary obstacles

Although not all Japanese property owners deny rental to noncitizens, some impose extra conditions that are hard for many foreign nationals to meet. These often relate to the tradition of having a guarantor or a co-signer ink the rental contract, thereby agreeing to pay the rent if tenants fall behind or fail to pay for any damage they may cause.

English teacher Peter (not his real name) was required to pay double the regular deposit and key money, nearly doubling the upfront costs he needed to cover before he could move into his current apartment. Peter, a Kobe resident, was looking for a better location within the city to raise his daughter, and managed to find his current apartment with help from his employer, who signed the agreement with the company’s name and covered the upfront cost on Peter’s behalf, which he later repaid. In a phone conversation he said, however, that dodgy companies could potentially use such a debt as leverage against an employee in the event of troubles at work, a scenario that could even lead to disagreement over the property rights.

Many landlords also demand that foreign tenants supply a guarantor who is a Japanese national, which can also be a challenge, said Kennedy, the American who was looking for an apartment with his Vietnamese partner.

“Neither of us really have close friends who are Japanese,” he said. “We didn’t want to ask either his company, his co-workers.

“We are incredibly uncomfortable asking someone we are not close with to basically co-sign something like this. It feels almost rude, regardless of the person, to just ask suddenly, ‘Will you legally agree to pay the full amount of my lease if for some reason I stop?’ I mean, do Japanese people even ask people who are not their direct family to be guarantors?”

Landlords get free rein

Article 14 of the Japanese Constitution reads, “All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.” Japan also signed the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1996, but no law has been passed to address the issue of refusing to rent based on race or nationality.

Shoichi Ibuski, a lawyer with expertise in immigration and labor issues, confirmed there are no laws in Japan prohibiting property owners from rejecting applicants based on their nationality. This means landlords can freely advertise their properties with annotations clarifying that foreign tenants are not welcome.

Ibuski also pointed out that owners are also allowed to demand additional documentation or fees from non-Japanese applicants.

Although he is aware of cases where some foreign tenants have violated rental agreements, “this should not serve as a reason to deny rental to foreign nationals,” he said by telephone. “There are no grounds suggesting foreign citizens are more likely to cause any problems. I doubt there are any statistics proving that theory.”

In 2014, the Justice Ministry’s Kyoto Bureau dismissed a human rights violation complaint filed by a then 25-year-old Belgian student at Ryukoku University in Kyoto who was denied rental due to the apartment landlord’s no-foreigners policy.

The ministry concluded that Victor Rosenhoj’s treatment did not constitute a violation of his human rights and refused to pursue his case. Under Justice Ministry policy, its local bureaus can investigate complaints relating to human rights violations and resolve the dispute through measures that include engaging the concerned parties in dialogue, providing recommendations or educating people on the issue. But they don’t have the authority to take punitive measures.

“The practice of refusing rental simply because the applicant is a foreign national, regardless of what the law says, is unacceptable — it’s a very inappropriate and mistaken way of thinking,” Ibuski said. “I believe this is discrimination.”

He called the complaints that people of certain nationalities tend to lag behind in payment “nothing but prejudice.”

“Japanese cause the same troubles as foreign tenants do, which result from differences in age, birthplace or way of thinking. It’s not as if Japanese wouldn’t cause the same problems they believe foreigners would,” he said.

Breaking down prejudices

Housecom’s Tokyo office rents apartments from landlords under the company’s name, pays monthly rent and covers the costs of restoring the properties to their original condition, said Nagai.

As a property handler, the firm then rents apartments to foreign tenants and offers a guarantor company service, which requires tenants to pay an initial charge worth 50 percent of the monthly rent and a fixed yearly amount after renewal of the contract.

Nagai said these services are available only at the company’s Tokyo headquarters, and were introduced in response to the needs of those planning to relocate to Japan for work as well as newcomers from overseas. Housecom has about 160 agencies offices nationwide.

Nagai suggested that if foreign residents want to ensure the issue of nationality doesn’t cloud the rental process, they should seek help from agencies with services specifically geared toward non-Japanese tenants.

Tokizo Motojima of the Housing Support Division said the ministry plans to revise the guidebook it releases to inform foreign residents of rental procedures and residential regulations. The existing guidebook, released in 2009 and available in six languages — English, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese — was issued in order to address misunderstandings between foreign tenants and Japanese landlords.

“One goal was to reassure owners that renting to a foreign tenant is safe,” Motojima said. “It’s unacceptable for foreign nationality to be used as a reason for denying rental, and we’re trying to change the perception” that foreign tenants are a bother to deal with.

The ministry cooperates with some municipalities, which offer consultations and help foreign residents settle down with the support of local nongovernmental organizations that, for instance, provide rental service for foreign students.

“I think it would be great if Japan enacted some actual enforceable anti-discrimination laws,” said Kennedy. “Whether Japan likes it or not, more foreigners will come to Japan and the problem will just continue to grow if nothing is done. Owners still believe the stereotypes of foreigners as loud, wild or just unwilling to listen to rules or requests, and we are also seen as flight risks, regardless of our visas, partially because there is no formal immigration.”

Kennedy suggests developing an improved governmental support system for property owners to help them deal with non-Japanese and more efforts to educate the owners against believing the stereotypes about foreign tenants. He added that applicants should be allowed to meet the property owners face to face.

“I doubt that if an owner rented to a Japanese man that smoked inside, did not pay rent and was drunk all the time would say ‘I will never rent to a man again,’ so why should it be any different for a foreigner?” he said. “Changing public opinion is the only thing that can be done without forcing someone’s hand.”

Comments

 * B.I.T.: I've moved about 7 times in 25 years, and only twice did I have any luck with a local real estate company that didn't specifically cater to foreigners. And that's despite having permanent residency (for 15 years), a Japanese guarantor, Japanese language ability, and I work for a very large Japanese company. In fact, the last time I decided to move, my agent, who had never treated me any differently, even gave me a recommendation and told me to use his name card.  But when I went to that agent, he half-heartedly called two landlords (who turned me down) and then he promised to follow up on a couple of places and said he'd call me. I waited a few days, but he didn't call, so I went back to see what he'd found out. But as soon as I went inside, he waved me off - all he said, in a gruff voice, was "We don't have anything for you. Go somewhere else."  That was probably the rudest brushing off I have ever gotten. Other agencies at least were polite, and often sympathetic, after landlords said no. This guy, however, went out of his way to make me feel bad. I decided then and there not to bother with local agents ever again.  Incidentally, when I did find a new place and moved out, the landlord of my old place tried to threaten me into paying extra fees for cleaning and "damages". I actually had to go to Tocho to the gov. office that regulates real estate agents to complain, in order to make him back off.  It seems that landlord thought it would be easy to bully a single foreign female. He was wrong.  But someone else with less tenacity or less knowledge of the law might have just paid up. So when I hear how landlords are afraid of being ripped off by foreign tenants, I think of that guy - and I have zero sympathy.
 * S.V.D.: Some fifteen years ago, my wife, who was Japanese, and I sought an apartment in Yokohama. After a few rejections by real estate agencies and owners, we finally found willing partners and rented an apartment. The standard Yokohama real estate contract, however, required a guarantor who was "a close relative living in Japan". My wife's father agreed to be our guarantor and the deal was closed.  Since then, I have become a Japanese citizen but my wife has passed away. Even though I am now a Japanese citizen, I no longer have any close relatives living in Japan. I can no longer rent an ordinary apartment in Yokohama, and if I needed to move there, I would have to seek out a foreign specialty realtor who charges much more than ordinary realtors.  It's far past time for Japan to adopt legislation that outlaws discrimination in housing and all other areas of life.
 * p.d. (at S.V.D.): When I started my initial search for my own apartment I sat and listened to some 12 - 15 customers of the real estate agent say "No." when they heard I was foreign. When asked if it would be different if I were Japanese, the staff smiled and said "Oh of course, it's like having an animal you see." without even a hint of an idea as to how offensive he'd just been.
 * B. (at S.V.D.): You have a great chance to fight and improve the system here, if or when you're moving again. As you are a Kokumin you would be on very solid ground if you chose to bring such a battle to court.
 * S.V.D. (at B.): The problem I would have is fighting the "guarantor being a close relative in Japan." It doesn't explicitly bar foreigners (and it didn't stop me from renting, before.) Many people I have spoken with think the "relative living in Japan" is a reasonable condition and not racist. But the effect is exclusionary.
 * S.J.: This article states that, "Article 14 of the Japanese Constitution reads, “All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.”" This English translation of Article 14 of the Japanese Constitution is not quite correct. The actual Japanese constitution in the Japanese language states that "All of the "kokumin" are equal under the law", not, "All of the people are equal under the law". Japanese courts have interpreted the word "kokumin" in the constitution to apply narrowly only to Japanese citizens (not broadly to residents or people), so the Japanese constitution does not offer these protections to non-Japanese residents of Japan.  This was correctly reported in a piece here in The Japan Times, published under the heading, "Bill of Rights" (by Satoko Kogure, dated, July 20, 2004). According to this piece:  "As a result, though Article 14 (I) of the Constitution stipulates that “All (kokumin) are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin,” since the word “kokumin” does not include foreigners, the Constitution provides no legal basis for the protection of foreigners against discrimination."  This was also covered in a column by Colin P.A. Jones, "Think you’ve got rights as a foreigner in Japan? Well, it’s complicated", published here in The Japan Times (Aug 6, 2014), which explains:  "After Japan’s defeat, American-led reforms made the country more democratic but did little to alter the distinctions between Japanese and foreigner that remain deeply rooted in Japanese law. These included the family registry system (in which only Japanese nationals are registered), Article 2 of the Civil Code (which clearly anticipates the possibility of foreigners being treated differently) and numerous provisions of the current Constitution. Indeed, one of the important nuances missing from the English version of the Constitution is that wherever it refers to “the people,” the Japanese version reads “the Japanese people.” This limitation renders many of the provisions of the charter slightly oxymoronic, referring as they do to the fundamental human rights of the Japanese people."  This is why racial discrimination against non-Japanese people is so widespread in Japan, since it is the only country in the developed world where such discrimination is perfectly legal and state-sanctioned. I think it is quite disgraceful and deplorable in this day and age and it just shows how far Japan still has to go in becoming a modern society.
 * S.B. (at S.J.): Actually, the wording of kokumin and the problem of constitutional protections for foreigners is more tricky than you think. In the Ronald McLean case to the supreme court, it was said that foreigners are protected by contitutional rights "except for those rights inteded just for nationals". And here is the funny part, the standard to determine what is "just for nationals" is not set, leaving it to be completely at the discretion of the goverment. In the Ronald McLean case, The Ministry of Justice denied the renewal of a status of residence based on the fact that this person participated in a political demostration. The supreme court basically said that whatever the reason, the Ministry of Justice is free to deny renewal, and it will never constitute a contitutional violation. What this translates into is, foreigners have constitutional protections, unless the goverment says otherwise.
 * S.J. (at S.B.): Yes, I'm familiar with the 1978 Supreme Court case you have cited. The bottom line of the court's abstruse ruling and language is that it does nothing to give foreign residents of Japan any specific constititional rights. In fact, this decision is confirmation that foreigners lack basic rights such as the right to free speech and assembly, which are afforded to Japanese citizens by the constitution. It is also important to understand that the Japanese Supreme Court is not really a constititional court in the true sense, since it operates based on a set of its own invisible rules, regardless of what the constitution may say. This point has been eloquently made by Hiroshi Segi, former presiding judge of The Tokyo Disitrict Court, in his excellent book, “Zetsubo no Saibansho” (“Courts without Hope”). It is a damning indictment of Japan's corrupt and nationalist judicial system.  The fact is that the Japanese government has repeatedly demonstrated its unwillingness to uphold the basic human rights of its foreign residents, of which having a place to call home is certainly one of the most fundamental rights. Such reluctance was on clear display once again a couple of years ago in the decision made by the Justice Ministry’s Kyoto bureau to not pursue a complaint against a landlord’s no-foreigners policy. I'm referring here to the case of Belgian exchange student Victor Rosenhoj in which he filed a complaint with the government against "no-foreigners allowed" landlords of rental properties in Kyoto ("No-foreigners landlord case shows Japan ‘utterly unprepared’ to fight discrimination: expert", The Japan Times, April 9, 2015).  Of course, this comes as no surprise to those who are familiar with the Japanese judicial system. After all, it was just back in 2011 when one of the Japanese government's chief prosecutors, Hiroshi Ichikawa, confessed that part of the training he received when he joined his department was, “We were taught that yakuza and foreigners have no human rights”.
 * S.B. (at S.J.): I think all of that is symptom of a deeper problem, because there is a big problem with the judicial system in japan. And even if the structure of the judicial system by itself is independent, the way the judicial system works makes it virtually not independent. From the ridiculous requirements to even become a candidate for judge, the way judges almost become prosecutors in criminal cases, and how the supreme court almost always sides with the general opinion of the government, making legal cases to justify the government claim instead of viewing the case by its merits, makes it very difficult to see the justice system as impartial. The justice system basically just tries to maintain the status quo of whatever is going on. They rarely make any ruling that challenges anything, even if strictly speaking it doesn't make sense. For example, the McLean case is ridiculous from a legal view point, because the case contradicts itself. They say that foreigners are protected by the constitution, "except for those rights intended just for nationals". But then it never tries to even answer the question that if freedom of speech is a "right intended just for nationals", and instead take this route that, taking actions that can affect the result of elections in Japan, and also affect international relations, it can constitute a violation of Japan's interest, to just end up saying that the Ministry of Justice can do whatever they want in relation to renewing the visa of someone. So they do never deny that Freedom of Speech is protected, they just say that the Ministry of Justice can do whatever they want, because basically it is not a right but a privilege to get the visa.  In something that even has nothing to do with the visa process, but in the naturalization process, which is codified inside the nationality law, instead of some weird law for foreigners, the ministry of justice do not follow the law. They just don't care what the law says, they ask people to prove things and to show things that have nothing to do with the requirements for naturalization, but are plainly things life-style problems. And I'm sure that even if you can appeal a negative result, and take it to court, basically every one who understand the Japanese Judicial system knows there is no way in hell they are going to let it procede, so it just get dismissed regardless of merit, because the law is extremely vague, and something as simple as saying that the application requires the approval of the Ministry of Justice as a way to say that the Ministry of Justice needs to review the application and make a decision based on that, it can be easily interpreted as saying once again that the Ministry of Justice has all the authority regardless of the law, and the Judge is always going to side with the Ministry of Justice.  But talking of things that have nothing to do with foreigners, for example, any lawsuit brought by same-sex couples against their local government for not allowing them to marry under human rights and constitutional violation, is just dismissed. There is no reason to dismiss it if there are merits to the case, but they just do it, because they don't want to have to argue it.  But this is also a failure in part of the population, because this is yet another instance in which the population just shows complete and total lack of interest, even if it affects them directly.  Apathy to politics let the government to abuse power, and for it to go unchecked, specially when the only ones checking are other members of the government, so unless it goes against the interests of the government, the are never going to do anything about it.
 * B. (at S.J.): I was quite suspicious of that line, thank you!
 * m.h. (at S.J.): Haha! The feeling is very weird. A lot of foreigners want/try to live In here. Although, I guess no Japanese have said we want stupid/rude foreigners to come here.
 * S.J. (at m.h.): Thank you for the omotenashi!
 * m.h. (at S.J.): Yap, you are welcome. I'm sorry. Since I could not think you can understand about our hospitality completely. "Reigi" means a part of hospitality, I think. It has "rei"and "gi" meaning. "Rei" means manners. And "Gi" means form. Traditional Japanese have some very important manners. e.g. If we got rude/stupid people, we have to become rude/stupid. Because, if we become a polite man, your rude/stupid become to look like very rude/stupid. Fortunately, I always wish to be traditional one who don't like prejudice racism. But I wish you not to be stupid. Since I really don't like by become stupid.  At least, Criticizing us without checking many information by yourself is a very rude.
 * S.J. (at m.h.): Typical defensiveness, nationalism and ignorance one encounters in Japan whenever the truth or facts are presented. BTW, I have come across more bigoted and "rude/stupid people" in Japan than pretty much any other country in the world. The only exceptions are usually when someone wants to sell you something. Just read B.I.T.’s post here in which she writes the following about a Japanese real estate agent she encountered:  "I waited a few days, but he didn't call, so I went back to see what he'd found out. But as soon as I went inside, he waved me off - all he said, in a gruff voice, was "We don't have anything for you. Go somewhere else." That was probably the rudest brushing off I have ever gotten." Such examples of rudeness and bad behavior abound in Japan, yet many Japanese still have a falsely elevated sense of their manners.  You can parse Japanese words any which way you want and try to put lipstick on a pig. But, it still doesn't make someone polite, well-mannered, open-minded or hospitable. Your posts are a good illustration of this.
 * m.h. (at S.J.): Yeah~. I had felt that to you though. My information is public one. So all you can find my information easily. But this topic's information is not public one. The stupid reporter said "87.1% foreigners denished" and "nearly 40% foreigners denished //by pubric report" on same this topic. You had asked me "full two-thirds of the brabra~" even though those numbers are completely not alike. Unfortunately it means you couldnt't think why those numbers are very different. And you also cannot trust public the information even though you can trust the information by the stupid reporter. But please do not drop your mind. Fortunately, I often find stupid foreigners like you. When stupid them are pointed out inconvenient facts they always shout that person are "Nationalist!" or "racist!!" or so soon for trying to stop the inconvenient facts.  I see so did you start to hate us then? I think that's no problem as it's only your opinions. Every opinions are free. I recommend you not to come any more. Since it's very better for you and especially for us. I guess you cannot remind my opinions while ago. So, I say that again "no Japanese have said we want stupid/rude foreigners to come here."  Hahaha!! I'm not sure his opinion is true or not true. Since I cannot think mostly Japanese shout suddenly/ And no one can know what happened then. But even if his experience are true it has nothing to do with our relationship. Since he was a customer and he was not rude. But you are not my customer and you are a racist to Asian. It means rude. I said it once like this sentence on your replied comment for you.  Unfortunately you cannot remind any thing.......hmm~.
 * M. (at m.h.): "you are a racist to Asian" I just love it when I hear this rebutal. Especially since other Asians tend to be treated *worse* in Japan than white people. Did S____ mention he is not Asian? I think he is American, but his real name could very well be S____ W_______, K____ S___... you get the picture.
 * J.: I experienced this too, and it is one of the reasons why, after 23 years, we elected to leave. Because I did not want my mixed race kids to grow up to be so focused on and obsessed over by racial issues, the way they are in Japan. Sad, but it is so.
 * J.F. (at J.): That is sad. I just had a daughter, and I'm quite worried. I have always been irritated by the weird "Japanese are amazing" sort of stuff they say on TV, but now I'm actually a bit frightened by it.
 * J. (at J.F.): The really weird part is that some people really are amazing and so kind and friendly. But for this kind of thing to be institutionalized; for the legal system not to be there to defend you...my kids are growing up with complexes about who or what they are. Even the nicest Japanese people will stare and say something that amounts to, "you're different, aren't you!" In Canada, where I'm from, we do have racism and prejudice, but if you have a job and can pay the rent, no one really cares where you're from.
 * Y.H.: Discrimination between landlords and renters happens not only between Japanese and foreigners, but among Japanese themselves too. A Japanese man, I know very well personally, considered a while ago to buy a second home near the sea for holidays and retirement. When he found an object with the help of a real estate broker, the owner was showing up, looking at him, said 'Who are you? I don't know you' and was asking him from where he is coming from. I am Japanese, living in Tokyo since decades, born in Hokkaido, he replied and also mentioned he is able to pay immediately the requested amount in cash. The owner responded that his intention is only to sell to locals living near to his area, no Japanese from elsewhere, especially from the cities is welcome and left immediately. Japanese people who consider to rent any object will tell you similar unpleasant experiences with landlords - no male renter welcome, single woman only, no children, no foreign spouse, non-smoker only, no pet of any kind, of course also a Japanese relative as guarantor required, and so on and so on. It is difficult to rent in Japan. There is a shortage of low-cost rental objects almost everywhere in urban areas. Landlords are simply said overdemanding and are getting away with it.
 * S.J. (at Y.H.): "Discrimination between landlords and renters happens not only between Japanese and foreigners, but among Japanese themselves too." One of the graphics in the piece above shows three examples of real estate listings which specifically state that the rentals are not available to foreigners. This is extremely common in a great many rental signs in Japan. When was the last time you saw a rental sign in Japan that said "Not available for rent to people born in Hokkaido", or "Not available to Kagoshima natives"? It simply never happens, so your comment is completely off-base.
 * H. (at Y.H.): This is perhaps the most interesting comment here, for it goes beyond the problem of prejudice and ethnic/racial discrimination and gets to the conflict between the rights of property owners and the needs of would-be tenants. I would feel highly insulted if I were turned down by a landlord. But then I also don't wish to see Japan become the litigious nightmare that America has become...Years ago I had an American relative who rented out apartments. She was a kind and gentle soul, but she had her rules: no smoking, no consumption of alcohol, for example. And she would never have rented her property to an unmarried couple--or to homosexuals, though I rather doubt she would have recognized the latter. Today she would be sued and bankrupted.
 * K.G. (at Y.H.): Y.H... the most logical/factual comment here by far.. thanks.
 * S.J. (at K.G.): No, his is not one of the "most logical/factual" comments here, since Y.H. is trying to show false equivalence. Have you ever seen a rental sign in Japan that states, "Not available for rent to anyone from Hokkaido", or "Not available to people from outside of Tokyo"? Of course, not. Yet, the same thing happens all the time to foreigners when they routinely come across rental signs that specify, "Not available to foreigners".
 * Y.H. (at S.J.): I have no idea how it can be 'completely off-base' or showing 'false equivalence' when I write that Japanese people who consider to rent any object will tell you frequently similar unpleasant experiences with landlords as foreigners do. Japanese are often refused by landlords too out of any strange reason you can imagine.
 * S.J. (at Y.H.): It is false equivalence, because whereas it may happen to Japanese in some very rare cases (because they have pets, kids, smoke or financially unable, etc.), foreigners encounter housing discrimination 82.5 percent of the time for the overwhelming and often only reason that they are non-Japanese (seperately from legit reasons such as having pets, kids, smoking or financial wherewithal, etc).
 * Y.H. (at S.J.): To reject Japanese nationals willing to rent an apartment because of pets, kids or wife being pregnant, elderly people living with them and plenty of other reasons is not a 'very rare case'. It's quite common, ask any real estate broker everywhere in Japan.  To reject however anyone who is financially unable to pay the rent, Japanese or foreigner, what is wrong with that? In such a case, I am with the landlord.
 * C. (at Y.H.): But I'll bet no one refuses to rent to a potential tenant because he or she is Japanese.
 * p.d.: Some 4 or 5 years ago when my rental agreement was due again I had a problem as my "live" guarantor wasn't going to play ball anymore. I asked for help and a Japanese friend took me to see her lawyer friend; called 2 real estate friends and I went to Legal Aid. All of them confirmed that I actually didn't NEED either a "live" guarantor, nor the guarantor company. They weren't a legal requirement, nor was the bi-annual payment of 1 1/2 months rent to the real estate company. Scam upon scam upon scam.
 * J.F. (at p.d.): This. It's just easy money they can milk from renters without providing any real service in return. If Japanese people would stand up against realtors who steal from them, these shenanigans would end quickly. Unfortunately, most people just consider these fees a given and pay up. It's really frustrating to see.
 * B.: absolutely shameful that this is still legal in japan. not just the refusal to rent, but the superiority complex behind it which narrows thinking among leaders in all areas of society. no wonder japan has been stagnant for decades and can't get out of any problem, because anything outside the current experience is automatically deemed "worse."
 * S.J. (at B.): I agree with you that the situation in Japan with its bigotry, intolerance and paranoia towards foreigners is absolutely shameful. However, I think the root cause of this is not a superiority complex, but rather inferiority complex, insecurity and a lack of self-confidence among the Japanese. To use an analogy, it is often said that the most homophobic men are usually the ones who doubt their own sexuality and who lack confidence in their own masculinity/hetrosexuality. The same case can be made about the Japanese attitude towards foreigners. Both are a reflection of fragility and weakness, not of strength. It's also important to remember that at their root, both superiority complex and inferiority complex are the same thing. According to Wikipedia, "A superiority complex is a psychological defense mechanism that compensates for an inferiority complex. The counterpart of an inferiority complex, a "superiority complex" is a psychological defense mechanism in which a person's feelings of superiority counter or conceal their feelings of inferiority."  The Austrian psychotherapist Alfred Adler wrote, "We should not be astonished if in the cases where we see an inferiority [feeling] complex we find a superiority complex more or less hidden. On the other hand, if we inquire into a superiority complex and study its continuity, we can always find a more or less hidden inferiority [feeling] complex."  "If a person is a show-off, it is only because she or he feels inferior because she or he does not feel strong enough to compete with others on the useful side of life. That is why she or he stays on the useless side. She or he is not in harmony with society. It seems to be a trait of human nature that when individuals – both children and adults – feel weak, they want to solve the problems of life in such a way as to obtain personal superiority without any admixture of social interest. A superiority complex is a second phase. It is a compensation for the inferiority [feeling] complex."  "The superiority complex is one of the ways that a person with an inferiority complex may use as a method of escape from her or his difficulties. She or he assumes that she or he is superior when she or he is not, and this false success compensates her or him for the state of inferiority which she or he cannot bear. The normal person does not have a superiority complex, she or he does not even have a sense of superiority. She or he has the striving to be superior in the sense that we all have ambition to be successful; but so long as this striving is expressed in work it does not lead to false valuations, which are at the root of mental disease."
 * P.L. (at S.J.): Can you imagine doing that overseas to Japanese? This country has been and still is very xenophobic. I agree with S.J.
 * Guest: This comment was deleted.
 * S.J. (at Guest): Actually, Japan is worse when it comes to allowing people into the country. The only difference is that whereas in the U.S., such bans are widely publicized, in Japan they're carried out quietly and discreetly. Besides, Japan's unwelcoming stance towards foreigners is well known, so it is not nearly the popular destination that America is. Let's not forget that Japan is the only country in the world which has placed all 100 percent of its Muslim population under a blanket surveillance program for no reason other than their religion, and where such spying has been deemed legal by the supreme court (as reported in The Japan Times piece, "Shadow of surveillance looms over Japan’s Muslims", by Jarni Blakkarly, July 13, 2016).
 * K.G. (at S.J.): Lets not forget.. that Japanese passport holders must register and pay for tourist visa online to enter the US while Americans get same visa on arrival here.. free.
 * B. (at K.G.): everyone has to register and pay for a visa before going to the US regardless of nationality. having different rules for different races would be discriminatory, this is not.
 * B.I.T. (at Guest): I see. You're saying that racism is ok if someone else has done it first. You know, I think you just lost the argument, along with any moral high ground, right there.
 * B. (at S.J.): very interesting! i'm intrigued by your idea. could you give some examples of this showing in the current japanese way of life / way of dealing with things? i've thought of a few myself just in the few minutes between reading your comment and writing this reply, but i'd be interested to hear about your experiences.
 * T.L.G. (at B.): Sadly, parochial mindset of close-minded Japanese landlords is left far behind the stellar progress of multi-cultural diversity.
 * C.F.: Oh man, I can remember encountering this when I first came to Japan (Tokyo) around 30 years ago. Since then I've learned to gravitate toward owners who don't care. On the other hand, as a white male American, it has given me a much-greater sympathy for the garbage minorities have to put up with in the U.S.
 * S.J.: I'm really glad that The Japan Times conducted its own survey of discrimination faced by foreigners when seeking housing in Japan. I have always been skeptical of the Japanese government's own recent survey on this topic, which I believe severely under reported the true extent of racial discrimination against foreigners in Japan. According to this piece, "The Japan Times canvassed foreign residents about their experiences, and of 63 readers who responded, 52 — or 82.5 percent — said they had been told or were convinced that their nationalities were the reason for a rental refusal."  It is worth noting that this figure of 82.5 percent in The Japan Times' survey is more than twice as high as the Japanese government's survey, which claimed that only 39.3 percent of respondents said that they had been denied housing because they were not Japanese.  I explained the reasons back then about why the government's survey was not objective or credible and could not be trusted (in the comments section to the article which appeared here in The Japan Times under the heading, "Time to act on insights from landmark survey of Japan’s foreign residents", April 26, 2017). These include such factors as a lack of transparency, conflict of interest, the absence of oversight or audit by any independent third party, selection bias and not knowing the criteria for rejecting certain responses as invalid, etc., in the survey conducted by the government.
 * K.Y-N (at S.J.): It's quite amusing that before you were complaining that the government's sample size of 18,000 random individuals was too small, yet now you proclaim 63 self-selecting JT readers who were asked to describe "any reasons given for being denied rental" as the gold standard.
 * S.J. (at K.Y-N): K__, as much as you'd like it, there really is no contradiction in my posts. Had you read the entirety of my comments you would know that a main basis of my criticism of the government survey was that the Japanese government is not an objective or credible party to conduct a survey on discrimination against foreigners. This is because the government has in the past repeatedly denied that racial discrimination against foreigners is a problem in Japan. The Japanese government has been criticized by the U.S., the UN and other human rights groups for such denials and they have been putting pressure on the Japanese government to enact laws against racial discrimination. However, the Japanese government has to this day resisted such pressure. If the government was really serious, it would have hired one of the many globally reputable and independent companies that specialize in designing and administering such surveys. The second factor I mentioned about why the governmental survey lacked credibility is that (unlike The Japan Times), the Japanese government has detailed information about every foreign resident of Japan (including their political and social leanings, as well as, whether they have voiced criticism of Japan in the past). For this reason, it is very easy and indeed likely, that the sample size selected by the government to receive the surveys was subjected to filters to weed out unfavorable responses. This most certainly would have created a serious sample bias in the survey. I very much doubt that the 18,000 surveys were mailed to recepients who were randomly selected. It is within the context of such intentional sample bias that I wrote of the government survey being not large enough. The government also apparently discarded some responses as invalid which probably also skewed the results.  Lastly, the government's survey did not pass the smell test, as far as I'm concerned. In my ten-plus years living in Japan, almost every single foreigner here I know has been discriminated against in their quest to seek housing. So, the government survey's results in which only about 40 percent of foreigners complained of this seems artificially low to me.  The Japan Times survey may be smaller, but I trust it much more because it does not suffer from the same flaws and pitfalls as the Japanese government survey. The Japan Times is neutral and impartial when it comes to this issue, but the same cannot be said of the government.
 * B. (at K.Y-N): i think you misunderstand. he didn't say it was a gold standard, just that the 2:1 discrepancy was noteworthy. if the national survey was indeed indicative then other studies would likely (not definitely) show a similar balance, and because they don't, it's a possible hint that the flaws in the previous study identified earlier may be valid concerns.
 * D.S. (at B.): During my last start move, I'd say AT LEAST 80% of the places I looked into in Tokyo rejected me because I'm a foreigner. My first day with my realtor, he lined up 3 places to check out. We literally struck out. He himself was astonished. So I just started forwarding places to him to check if it was gaijin Ok. I sent about 7 a day for a few weeks and at least 80% came back no.  I hadn't settled on one place, but they wanted me to use a guarantor company AND a personal guarantor. I asked my realtor how that works, he said that in the event that I don't pay, the comapny pays the landlord and the goes after my personal gaurantor. So, this "comapny" actually accepts no liability but is going to take my money yearly on top of the initial fee? Isn't that the textbook definition of extortion? So I said one or the other, and low and behold, my application was decline.  Was certainly an educational experience.
 * B. (at D.S.): well yeah they have a large incentive to refuse anyone based on race (or anything else they can get away with), because they can make deals with these guarantors they're insisting on and get kickbacks and get more money. if you're still searching, i had no problems i think because i went with a large company that builds and i think also owns they apartments they rent out, rather than being just middlemen.
 * D.S. (at B.): This was about a year and a half ago, so I ended up with something I can live with. Search long enough, you'll find something. Just a lot of pitfalls waiting out there for the unsuspecting renter.
 * P.F_I: Japanese residents abroad should be refused tenancy and the ensuing scandal, rightfully so, will ensure that the Japanese government act on this silly way of treating foreigners in Japan. It is scandalous and a disgrace - hiding under the landlord cannot speak English, establishment cannot speak English is a nonsense. This insecurity is seen abroad where people are refused entry in Singapore and Thailand (shoddy district) due to the establishments preference for Japanese customers! No doubt instigated by the Japanese clients
 * K.G. (at P.F_I): yaaa.. can't speak English in America.. good luck with that.. same 'nonsense' in France, Germany, Brazil or Russia (etc) this is Japan.
 * T.L.G. (at K.G.): Well, if language is not really an issue, then, there's absolutely no reason for the landlords to reject a foreign tenant a room (or event don't bother to meet him/her in the office) because of that.
 * S.J. (at K.G.): This is not a language issue. The earlier Japanese government survey which also showed widespread discrimination in housing against foreigners in Japan, was based on respondents who almost all spoke fluent Japanese.
 * K.G. (at S.J.): His comment was specifically related to insisting that Japanese landlords (etc) speak English.. I replied. Whereas.. your "widespread" claim was addressed in the article: 16% of 5M according to Yokote at JPM.. guessing about same if you ran survey in Oakland.
 * P.F_I (at K.G.): You are mistaken. There are loads of Japanese salarymen in London that are unable to speak English. In fact a Japanese ex gf of mine that was employed for the sole purpose of dealing with 'foreigners' in England, the cheek, was disdainful of her boss. Naturally, her English was not up to par. As Steve Jackman suggested, this refusal in granting tenancy is motivated by ill will. If you think otherwise, I'd imagine you are one of the glib know it all foreigner with a rented flat in Japan and would poo poo everything due to the rose tints.  My comment is not suggesting that Japanese landlords speak English, that would be silly. I suggested that they hide behind lack of English which makes it easy to exonerate themselves. Refrain from injecting something not there in pursuit of a Strawman
 * K.G. (at P.F_I): Mistaken.. read that you insisted Japanese landlords and 'establishment' should speak English. Then you sputter along about salarymen in London.. obvious question: do landlords (etc) there speak Japanese? Then, for added 'huh' you say now they shouldn't be expected to speak English but not hide behind the fact they can't/don't.. that.. clearly.. is definition of silly. —Add Edit.. as SJ 'suggested'.. seriously.. reasons are also noted in the article.. rose tints belong to folks who believe the world owes them something.. grow-up.
 * S.J. (at K.G.): The "widespread" claim is based on the Japanese Ministry of Justice's own survey released earlier this year, which showed that almost forty percent of foreign residents of Japan had encountered housing discrimination. As I explained in detail in another post here, the Japanese government survey severely under-reports the true extent of racial discrimination faced by foreigners in Japan, since the Japanese government is not a neutral, independent or impartial party.  The same goes for the figure you have cherry picked, since that too is coming from a Japanese government source. But, even according to the government's own figures from the above piece, 60 percent of survey respondents did not want to rent to foreigners, accordinng to the following quote:  "Masayuki Yokote, manager of the land ministry’s Housing Support Division, says that in a recent survey of Japan Property Management Association members, 60 percent of respondents said they were reluctant to accept foreign tenants."
 * K.G. (at S.J.): suuure.. the 'claim' is noted in the article.. see 18K surveys sent with 4K returned, of those 2K had rented in last 5yrs and from that narrow number.. comes the 40%.. 1,200 of 18,000. Nice if 'media' provided link to source for such important matters. As for cherry picking, reluctant vs. refused, need link for Websters? Meanwhile.. love to see "official" stats from other places.. that should be fun surf from moms basement.
 * Y.H. (at K.G.): It would be nice to see any Japanese government survey about Japanese nationals who tried to rent any accomodation and about their experiences with Japanese landlords. Japanese landlords reject often Japanese nationals too and don't ask me why.
 * M. (at Y.H.): You're right that Japanese landlords also sometimes refuse elderly people, men, children, you name it. I myself remember almost laughing when I was refused for having a baby. Your comment was a welcome addition because indeed this country has a problem with landlords, realtors and their attitude, despite there being around 8 million vacant homes, was it? They still think it's 1946 and Tokyo is overpopulated so they deserve the "reikin".  Still, let's not kid ourselves here. Refusal happens overwhelmingly more often to foreigners. Just check the listings for 外国人不可 or 外国籍不可 which appears far more often than say 子供不可 or 高齢者不可. Not to mention the places that don't mention it but do refuse non-Japanese anyway.
 * K._G.: Those who are rejected complain. When you are in Rome, do as Romans do.
 * B. (at K._G.): the story is that people would like to do as romans do, but they cannot because they are being discriminated against and forced to follow different rules.
 * P.F_I (at K._G.): I'd imagine you have not been rejected yet so are glib and feeling immune. It won't last :)
 * K._G. (at P.F_I): I've been rejected by the reason that I didn't prepare a guarantor for rent. I won't predict future :)
 * P. (at K._G.): Some "landlords" and real-estate companies are connected sharing tenant information. Nothing racial but this could predict your renting-future more accurately than a glass sphere:-)
 * S.J. (at P.F_I): Judging from the comments, Kitty_George has to be Japanese.
 * K._G. (at S.J.): If you think so, you must appreciate my advice.
 * T.L.G. (at K._G.): Rejected based on wrong reason is not the same as being rejected based on sound judgment. This case is not.
 * K._G.: To S.J. Some American landlords would refuse all Japanese tenants by the single stats of smoker, it can't be helped. Others may accept with confirming whether he/she swear smoking or non-smoking. As you like.
 * g.: As long as us foreigners remain around 5 percent or less of the total population, which means not political clout of any significance as a group, and with no political leverages such as voting rights, nothing will change in Japan regarding discrimination against foreigners. The only way politicians are forced to change the status quo of things is when their position, privileges and power are in jeopardy, e.g., the risk of losing their seat in parliament..
 * S.J. (at g.): "As long as us foreigners remain around 5 percent or less of the total population". For the record, foreigners make up less than 2 percent of Japan's population.
 * J.F. (at S.J.): And that 2 percent includes a lot of Koreans and Chinese who have been here for generations, but do not wish to become Japanese citizens. So it's even lower if you don't include people who are culturally but not ethnically Japanese.
 * T.C.L.: I don't see this as racism. It's just common knowledge that the Japanese are more clean and tidy than their foreign counterparts. Not limited to Japan either. I have first hand experience of landlords (non-Japanese) in London actively seeking Japanese tenants for the same reason. Put yourself in the landlord's position. Why take the risk when you have a safer bet?
 * p.d. (at T.C.L.): It's common knowledge that you talk a load of rot.
 * B. (at T.C.L.): whether you see it or not, treating one race differently from others is the dictionary definition of racism. even aside from that it's group punishment - why should one perfectly tidy person be treated as untidy just because some other people were?
 * P. (at T.C.L.): From first hand experience, too, outside Japan, Japanese do have a reputation for being clean. Landlords in London, Paris, Düsseldorf, etc., however, are actively seeking Japanese tenants because their companies pay a much higher rent and, in case of black sheep, make sure that the tenant leaves the apartment in the original condition. Japanese living on low budgets are largely rejected. This too is no racism, it is all about the money, sir.
 * S.J. (at P.): This is interesting, since in my experience, the Japanese expat packages tend to be much smaller than expat packages offered by large Western companies.
 * P. (at S.J.): Sorry, S____, no experience with large Western companies. For sure, Japanese expats are delicacies for both landlords and real-estate agents. Their rent is paid separately from the salary. Of course what they earn depends on the company and the expat's position which is typically raised to manager should the transferee hold a lower rank in Japan.
 * S.J. (at T.C.L.): Japanese are not always the safer bet. I remember the case of a Japanese tenent who lived in a shared house back in the U.S. some years ago. He fell asleep with a lit cigarette in his hand and thus burned down the whole house, causing great financial harm to the landlord and other residents. Since, it's a proven fact that more Japanese people smoke than Americans, couldn't a case be made that they are more likely to cause fires than Americans, so they are not such a safe bet?
 * D.G.: Like they mentioned in the article. Lots of rental agencies and landlords will discriminate solely on where the tenant comes from. Its like entering the USA on a visa waiver or Australia on a tourist visa...countries prioritize certain countries they have close ties with and are very well developed. Most European nations are not a problem. I am from the Netherlands and when I searched for a rental property I had no troubles. And I do not speak a word of Japanese.
 * B. (at D.G.): right but that's about diplomatic relations, nothing to do with race. if they were allowing say caucasian and asian americans in but not latino americans, that'd be a racist policy. also once those people are in the country they are subject to the same laws as citizens of that country, no more or less. to add extra rules that don't apply to people born there is discriminatory.
 * S.J. (at D.G.): D____, The Japan Times survey contradicts what you have written, since a full two-thirds of the respondents who encountered housing discrimination in Japan were born in North America, Europe and Australasia (See the second chart above). Obviously, I don't know your specific situation, but I think in general, your post is not very accurate. I know of several North Americans and Western Europeans who have also faced plenty of discrimination when looking for housing in Japan. This has been widely reported even in various blogs and the press. The popular American blogger (who is himself caucasian), K.S. wrote in his blog "Japaneseruleof7" last year about racial discrimination he faced when looking for an apartment in his post, "Renting an Apartment in Japan". It resulted in many foreigners posting their own accounts of encountering racial discrimination when looking for a place to rent in Japan. Typical is a comment by poster B____ (who is white), who wrote the following:  "I’ve had terrible problems renting in Kanto. Walking around the realtors in the area I wanted to live in, I was refused service, often with the batsu gesture – they wouldn’t even talk to me. Other places would search through their list for gaijin OK places but the pickings were slim. I am a Japanese literate university educated white guy and a permanent employee at an international known large Japanese company and dressed in a suit, it would be worse for others."  There are many other examples also, such as the widely publicized case of Belgian exchange student Victor Rosenhoj and his encounters with "no-foreigners allowed" landlords when looking for a place to rent in Kyoto ("No-foreigners landlord case shows Japan ‘utterly unprepared’ to fight discrimination: expert", The Japan Times, April 9, 2015).
 * M.L.: If you happen to want to buy -- and lots of apartments and single-family homes in Japan are vacant and awaiting buyers -- the red carpet will be rolled out. Often cheaper to buy.
 * P.F_I (at M.L.): Far cheaper to buy but good luck selling it if you are not going to live in it forever :)
 * K.Y-N: The last two times I've been looking for accommodation, they've all stated that I have to use an external guarantor agency that costs half a month's rent, but I notice that most people in the article said they had to have a real-life guarantor. Did none of your sample have the option of a commercial guarantor, and if so why not?
 * J.F. (at K.Y-N): That's not how it works. You have to have a real-life guarantor AND an use external guarantor agency. It's a scam widely used by realtors to milk more money from renters. The guarantor agency approves the real-life guarantor and will go after them for rent if you fail to pay. For this "service" they get a month or half a month's rent up front, another half of which goes back to the realtor. Most landlords do not require their use. Realtors just like to use them because fees paid directly to the real estate agency are legally limited to one month's rent.
 * P. (at J.F.): "Milk more money from renters..." Spot on, sir! You need to be extremely careful when forced to deal with an "external guarantor agency". Sometimes they get false information from the owner regarding, say, as to the reason for a delayed or reduced payment, which is insurance fraud, but that does not grant an agency the right to intimidate tenants which is a criminal offense. This is issue is not limited to foreigners, though, as no discrimination is made when it is about the money. A cow is always a cow.
 * J.F. (at P.): Indeed. When I read the article I actually thought, "discrimination may be the smallest issue with Japan's renting market..."
 * B. (at K.Y-N): as s_______ said they have a shady reputation, even if not the company as a whole, then some who use the information obtained by the company as extortion, etc. also would you want someone you didn't know as a guarantor on the place you live?
 * K.Y-N (at B.): > also would you want someone you didn't know as a guarantor on the place you live? Well, I do, and it doesn't bother me.
 * B. (at K.Y-N): I meant if you were in that situation, without anyone to fall back on, not you personally. if your guarantor decided to stop any time you'd be homeless in a foreign country. would you really not find that uncomfortable at all?
 * S.J. (at K.Y-N): K.Y-N, you wrote, "Well, I do, and it doesn't bother me". I hate to break it to you, but not all foreigners in Japan are as happy being so emasculated, since some of them want to live in Japan as adults, thought of as adults and treated as adults with adult responsibilities. Your post reminds me of a recent comment I read by a poster named D___ in the comments section of K.S’s blog Japaneseruleof7 (under his post titled, "Why are you still in Japan?). No one I know wants to be like one of the the low-testosterone underachiever foreigners in Japan who Dirk writes about. Here's his comment in its entirety:  "Yeah, living in Japan long-term is like living at mom’s house, or better, mom’s basement. I am in Japan for three weeks after an 8-year absence and I am taking a hard look at the male gaijins who came over on my wave (very late 1980’s – very early 1990’s) and are still here. They have all made good lives for themselves and seem happy enough. Not everybody can be a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, or even a dentist or lawyer. But down to the person, and there is no exception for a long-term MALE gaijin in Japan, they are ALL low-testosterone underachievers. After 15 years in Japan, I saw it happening to me – and I got the hell out. Had I not, I’d be just like them today. That is what playing the gaijin-game will do to you."
 * K.G. (at S.J.): This little come-clean explains alot.. really.. have fun in the big man blog comment world.. you're Great..
 * s. (at K.Y-N): I've heard that such guarantor companies can't really be trusted (and some or many landlords don't accept them), some apparently even have ties to the yakuza. No own experience though (except that some major real estate companies I used in the past indeed didn't accept them).
 * K.Y-N (at s.): > some or many landlords don't accept them As far as I am aware, it is an agreement between the landlord and the rental agency as to whether to use a third-party guarantor, with the rental agency having a preferred company.  All my three recent guarantor-related experiences in Tokyo with smaller companies have accepted third-party guarantors, and I think one even insisted. YMMV, of course, but that's what I've experienced in the Tokyo suburbs.
 * B. (at K.Y-N): you didn't see anything fishy about the one that insisted? also why should you be forced to pay more just because you're not a japanese citizen?
 * P. (at s.): Besides your personal guarantor, a friend or so, some sort of "rent-insurance" company is hidden in a standard rental apartment contract. You need to be extremely careful when forced to deal with such a 'company'. Some of them intimidate, even use violence if they don't get what they are after. They won't explain anything in writing only talk to you over the phone in order not to leave any evidences. This alone is highly suspicious. Victims are both Japanese and foreign tenants.
 * s. (at P.): Yeah, I remember the agent saying that something like that is already included and I have to pay it anyway (plus friend or family), which confused me..
 * m.h.: I have a information about criminals. You know mostly Japanese always wish to obey mostly laws. So, the percentage of foreign heavy criminals in Japan are bigger than Japanese one. e.g. Housing intrusion foreigner thefts are 4.5 times of Japanese. The information also said most them come from Colombia and China. Very important, that said "That China don't mean Taiwanese and Hong Konese". And other heavy criminals came from Vietnam and Brazil. Especially Chinese criminals are very many. By the way the information also says whites criminals are very less. By the way, you know those owner didn't agree the apply which people. If you didn't do that and you called Japanese are racists, it "means you" actually looks like really racists to Japanese.
 * Y.H. (at m.h.): Well, to be honest, many Brazilians in Japan are of Japanese ancestry. Many Chinese living permanently in Japan are born in Japan. Anyway, as far as I can see from statistics only about 6 percent of all prisoners in Japan are holding foreign citizenship. What has this to do however with rental of property?
 * m.h. (at Y.H.): Your information is not true. Your name looks like Chinese. You had gotten anti-Japanese education by the Communist government. I afraid that our ex.Chinese came from very many years ago had changed their citizenship to Japan already. I often feel their soul have been in China like many Chinese in other abroad. So, they had counted "Japanese". It means the information had not counted ex.foreigner.  I had never said about ancestry...???? ???All Japanese cannot chose having two countries citizenship. By the way, China also have same as our system for foreigners. Only Korean in Japan have privileges of citizenship though.  hu-uh.We always think a lot of Chinese can talk to factories based for many things. But these your feeling looks like Koreans on.
 * Y.H. (at m.h.): No idea, why my information is not true. Less than 6 percent of prisoners in Japan are foreigners. The huge majority of prisoners in Japan are Japanese citizens. I am not from China, but from Europe. Again my question, what has this to do with renting a property in Japan?
 * m.h. (at Y.H.): Oops, I misunderstood "prisoners bra bra". My skill is not good. I said about proportions about criminals then. It mean- Suppose JP are 120,000,000 and 5% CH 6,000,000 in JP. And if 0.02% JP 24,000 criminal, it means 0.09% CH 6,000 criminal. 0.02 times 4.5 = 0.09% These numbers are all assumptions, so they are not reliable. But both of our opinions don't contradict each other. It can be established at the same time. Most Japanese always care/worry many things. We are very scared if foreign heavy crime probability is 4.5 times as high. On the other hand, lately younger can understand English well. But most tenants owners are over 60th. It means very many of them cannot speak any English.  3rd, Many tenants owners operate those tenants themselves. Since they can get a little income by the tenants. So, if they get foreigners customers they have to care all of those. It means if their foreigners customers get some troubles, they have to resolve themselves or they have to pay a lot of money.  4th JP owners think foreigners have a lot of delinquency. //I never got this information though. 5th JP owners think foreigners don't use the room cleanly. //I never got this information though. And they have more reasons, I guess. Lending a tenant is a big business for many owners. So, they always worry by these reasons. I don't know which owners have which reasons.  Although, I have to say also JP are refused at time. And my tenant has 50% foreigners. And the 50% of 50% was CH.
 * B. (at m.h.): your skill is fine, your reasoning is terrible. you "feel their soul have been in China like many Chinese in other abroad" - a feeling is not a fact, nor any kind of reason to discriminate. also how about looking up the actual numbers? the data is available from the ministry of justice, in japanese. 2003 is good data to talk about because that's when the "crime wave" is said to have begun. according to japan's ministry of justice, there were 7,400,000 foreign nationals in japan (residents and visitors) and about 8,700 crimes committed - that's 0.0012%. at the same time there were 127,000,000 japanese, and 370,000 crimes (not including offences such as traffic violations) committed - 0.0029%. hmm.
 * T.L.G. (at m.h.): Fake news. What convinces you that people will buy into these garbage?
 * S.J. (at m.h.): "By the way the information also says whites criminals are very less." So, if that's the case, then why is it that a full two-thirds of the respondents in The Japan Times survey who encountered racial discrimination in housing are presumably mostly white (since they were born in North America, Europe and Australasia)? Or, did you miss the graphic in the piece above which shows this information?
 * m.h. (at S.J.): presumably ???presumably ???????? Are you sure?????????? Is that only your feeling, isn't that? I had never known only whites live in those areas. And, I could never see the sentence "they are white" in this topic. Although I can explain for the reason,even if North America, Australia and Europe mean white. I don't want explain that now for their pride.  At least you don't know any problems in Japan. And you often feel sure only your prediction. Since you cannot use Information well.
 * g.m.: There was a good article in Hiragana times many years ago from a landlord who had stopped renting to foreigners. He mentioned foreigners throwing loud parties and foreigners who'd stop paying rent for the last 3 months and then go back to their country without paying. I'd say if you want anyone to blame you need to partly blame your fellow foreigners. I have no idea how many bad Japanese tenants there are but knowing how it is back in my home country I'm pretty sure the average Japanese tenant, especially young (18-30) is far more considerate and responsible than their foreign counterpart. The people do in their college years in their apartments in the USA and Europe is something few Japanese would do. They know to "take it outside" (go to a cheap izakaya, bar, karaoke box, park) rather than trash their apartment.  As far as rejection I just decided not to let it bother me. Not saying it shouldn't be fixed, just saying I'm not the one who's going to fix it. There's plenty of landlords willing to rent to foreigners and there are plenty of landlords willing to use a guaranteer service. I got my latest apartment no problem.  As for key-money it's all about POV. If you just look at it as paying 2/26th of your next 2 years rent up front then to stops seeming like a scam. They could drop the key money and raise your rent 7.5%, instead they ask for 2 months up front every 2 years. In other words you can choose not to get angry about just by changing your perspective.
 * B. (at g.m.): that's just completely made up excuses. part of the rental process is paying 6 months rent up front, 1 month key money, 2 months security deposit, and 3 months more as rent in advance. on top of that monthly rent is also in advance, and payment or non-payment of rent is stipulated in japanese law as the thing which underpins a tenant's right to continue living there - keep paying you can't get kicked out, stop paying and you will be quickly. if loud parties really were a problem he could put that in the contract and have people who broke that contractual obligation removed, but instead he decides to stop renting to all foreigners rather than just all noisy people (japanese included) which tells us it's just a lie. the landlords are willing to use the guarantee service because they get a kickback. there's nothing wrong with key money, there is something wrong with asking for more key money based on nothing more than race.
 * T.L.G.: Scrap that real-life guarantor system for apartment rent. What's the point in doing so? It's not the same as housing mortgage.
 * Z.: Glad to see Ms. Osumi provide additional insight into renting in Japan. I have unfortunately experienced these discriminatory practices, once in Osaka and twice in Tokyo. I shared the story on how I beat the system via my YouTube channel. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=53fXL5i0dAQ
 * P.: Article 14, well, obviously, also the constitution has room for wild interpretations. Well, I am not good at writing longer articles but I'd say that foreigners are most welcome to pay taxes, aren't they?  Currently having a problem with my "landlord" who persistently refuses to fix a dangerous object. JT is absolutely correct, they do have free rein, indeed.  Anyway, the root of the problem is the government which does not press its thumb on the landlords who are supposed to carry social responsibility in return for their income - often being usury.  Thanks a ton, JT, for bringing this issue up and please keep us, the article 14 exceptions, updated.
 * P.L. (at P.): You have a lot more rights as a tenant once you are in. In the paper there was another article next to it and they couldn't even evict you without a court order which can't even have a process begin until after 4 months of non-payment...so once you are in - make it your own. I have had too many wank landlords and court cases where I won due to their stupidity. Sorry, not going to just walk away like some second class citz.
 * P. (at P.L.): Thanks a lot for your reply, P.L.! Sounds encouraging. My only 'crime' so far is that I twice deducted 1/3rd from the rent to stimulate the owner's feeling of responsibility. It did not work, in that I will see a lawyer, shortly. Wish I had your experience :-)
 * P.L. (at P.): You can not be evicted as long as you pay your rent. The owner/landlord would have to pay you 2 years of rent to leave. I have been in court twice and won both times. I refuse to be pushed around by some greedy b*stard
 * B. (at P.L.): you can't legally be evicted, but what often happens is people get harrassed into leaving. i've heard a common method is to call the company the tenant works for and if just asking doesn't work, they'll make stuff up until the boss decides the tenant is bringing shame onto the company and is told to move out or lose their job.
 * P.L. (at B.): That really is low of them to do it. I have had HUGE notices stuck on my door where the paint was ripped off and threatened (police did nada) and so when the former recently sold, I found out the money was laundered to another country and I sent all the docs to the IRS and hopefully karma will kick him in the ass. I would never tell where I work or my job might of changed by that time. Fight fire with fire. :)
 * B. (at P.L.): yeah threatening isn't a crime in japan, no action can be taken by police until something has actually been done. also providing proof of income is usually required in rental agreements, and so just about all landlords know where their tenants work.
 * K.G.: hmm, rehash of essentially same article JT posted March 31st, 2017 see: Japan’s foreign residents offer up insights in unprecedented survey on discrimination. Plenty of colorful comments, to a degree can sympathize.. however, rental of anything should also consider the "owners" inherent rights.. it's their property to allocate(.) Kindly suggest folks consider purchase investment condo and then decide how it feels on the other side of the table.. no-smokers.. no kids.. whatever.. 'owners' do not 'owe' you anything.. free market yada-yada.  Will close with interesting note buried within +2,500 word op-ed posing as journalism.. quote from Yokote-san and JPM survey: ".. the association represented 1,321 companies handling some 5 million properties as of April 2016. Just over 16 percent of respondents refused to accept foreigners, period." Imagine that number likely not much different than other places.
 * P.: Just came back from a legal consultation. We have a concrete wall with a growing crack that looks scary as if it could collapse any time into our bedroom window. The Japanese-only speaking lawyer talked to an European, me, as fast as a waterfall, used legal jargon all the time and didn't let me finish a full sentence. Anyway, he said the owner is not legally required to respond, explain or react on my report, let alone take responsibility in any way about the wall. Dangerous or not, it hasn't collapsed yet and I have no proof it will.  The only legal right I have as a tenant is to pay rent or move out. That was clear enough, although I am not sure whether the lawyer understood the situation or wanted to fully understand it although I had photos with me. His final words after 30 minutes were, "anyway, what is it that you are asking me?"  When during a legal consultation you feel like talking to the lawyer of your opponent or like the lawyer is stretching the time you have to pay for, then, break off as you are wasting your money. As an individual tenant you hardly have any rights while they use your imperfect Japanese as a weapon. Apart from that, whether you are a foreigner or Japanese, you are the victim.  I always wondered why merely the words "police, lawyer and court" are so deterrant for Japanese people and why they rather not report wrongdoings, dangers, etc., but wait until it happens with a "I don't know face". Now I do understand them and consider to do as the Romans do.
 * A.M.: Years back, my uni contract changed to where they were no longer my guarantor. Come time for my apartment contract renewal, I was without anyone (with a salary) to be my guarantor. I just told the landlord that I think I've established through being a reliable tenant, and given my salary, I can be my own guarantor. He agreed. And later when I changed to another apartment, the new landlord also agreed that I could be my own guarantor. All they cared about was my ability to pay for damages and a decent steady job. BTW, I'm just an eijuken holder. Of course, discrimination in housing is reprehensible, but sometimes the line between discrimination and a denial based on a legitimate background check is not always clear. And I think that will always give discriminatory J-landlords a weasel way out when not wanting to rent to foreigners, i.e., there will never be a law that forces landlords to rent to anyone who wants the property regardless of whatever strong anti-discrimination language it contains.

Source

 * https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2017/07/02/issues/no-foreign-tenants-not-much-can-you-can-do/#.XbN2BLJE2hA