アパート探し (apartment searching)

So, I thought I'd first write about apartment searching, since that took up a great deal of my life across spring semester and summer. Apartments with decent rent are not at all hard to find in Kyoto, but the Japanese tack on so many other fees (both upfront and monthly) that just looking at the rent will result in epic fail.

Apartment vocab:

• Recurring Fees
  
  • 家賃 ＜やちん＞ rent
  • 共益費 ＜きょうえきひ＞ monthly maintenance fee, sometimes included in the rent (家賃に含む)
    
  • 管理費 ＜かんりひ＞ if your apartment/mansion has a maintenance person, this is what you pay them to help you with any issues you may or may not have
• Upfront Costs
  
  • 敷金 ＜しききん＞ is basically a security deposit. You're not guaranteed to get it all back at the end of your stay, but provided you don't put a hole in the wall and you clean up when you leave, you should get most of it back.
  • 礼金 ＜れいきん＞ is known as "key money" in English, and is basically a "gift" to the landlord. You won't get any of it back.
    
• Utilities
  
  • As far as I know, there is no Japanese equivalent for the word "utilities." Instead, different utilities are addressed in different ways
  • 光熱費 ＜こうねつひ＞ refers to lighting and heating fees
  • インターネット接続 ＜internetせつぞく＞ indicates internet capability. This is still a rarity for Japanese apartments but becoming more popular. 光ファイバー is the best type to look for (sometimes shortened to just 光)

The best Kyoto apartment searching websites I found:

• http://www.kyoto-adpark.jp/
• http://www.chizumaru.com/