Oakhouse: my review after living in 3 different share houses for 2 years

Oakhouse has more than 200 residences in the Tokyo area. You’ll find for sure a free room close to where you work, study or party. Recently, the company decided to invest in Kansai. Therefore, it’s likely that there will be more and more Oakhouse housing in Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe in the future.

As you can see by reading the descriptions of the three share houses where I lived in, there is a lot of variety in the types of housing run by Oakhouse. You will necessarily find a home that suits your needs. For example, Oakhouse primarily provides Western-style rooms, but there are some residences in which you’ll also find traditional Japanese rooms with tatami mats.

Rents are reasonable when considering the size of common areas. Do not neglect them in your choice of accommodation. When I lived in share houses, I spent half of my time in the lounges, alone or with my housemates. This is a real advantage over classic studios which are very small in Japan.

The apartments are very difficult to access for foreigners who come to settle in Japan. Indeed, most homeowners don’t want foreign renters because they think that defaults are more likely with non-Japanese residents. Oakhouse doesn’t care about these pictures. If you have a valid visa, they’ll accept your request.

Beyond the difficulty of access to the rental park for foreigners, owners and real estate agencies charge many fees to new tenants. So it isn’t unusual to pay 3 or 4 additional monthly installments as soon as you move in. With Oakhouse, you pay only 30,000 yen for registration fees for single rooms and 10,000 yen for dormitories. Then you only have to pay your rent every month. Besides, you can save on start-up costs by registering with the link I shared earlier.

In addition to regularly opening new residences, Oakhouse maintains the oldest share houses. This isn’t the case for some of its competitors. I was able to visit homes run by other companies that were scary. The walls were thin as paper, the bathrooms were not partitioned. Fortunately, Oakhouse is committed to providing quality housing. They are often listening to residents who give them improvement ideas.

Unlike other share house agencies, Oakhouse accepts both Japanese and foreign residents. Most residences reflect this cultural diversity. By living in a share house managed by Oakhouse you’re guaranteed to meet new people quite often. Your housemates will be Japanese, French, American, Korean, Chinese … It’s a perfect international environment to make your first friends in Japan!

Oakhouse is one of the only agencies that provide customer service in English, French, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. You’ll be able to ask your questions and solve your problems with the staff using one of these languages. Besides, most share house managers speak English. This can be useful if you don’t master Japanese.

Oakhouse only requires one month’s notice for conventional rooms and two weeks for dorm beds. It’s much shorter than for traditional apartments. Indeed, it’s quite common to have a one-year commitment when you rent an apartment in Japan. Here, it’s not the case, since you can leave when you want. This is a significant advantage for working holiday visa holders and long-term tourists.

Some share houses are only open to women. This can be a plus if you don’t feel comfortable sharing a living space with men. Unfortunately, the same thing doesn’t exist for boys.

A share house manager has a central role in the daily life of a residence. You’ll just need to have one dispute with the manager It’s enough that you have a dispute with the manager so that your requests are not treated in the same way anymore. It’s a real human relationship, so make sure to always be friendly with your manager. Otherwise, you will pay it one day or another.

Share house rules can be binding. This is what often stirs the relationship with the manager who needs to ensure they are respected. The rules changes depending on the residence. For example, some buildings are forbidden to smokers, while other share houses don’t accept guests. Therefore, I advise you to read the descriptive page of a residence before considering signing a rental contract with Oakhouse.

This wasn’t a problem for me, since I always chose single rooms and shared the toilet and the bathroom with a few housemates. If you’re modest, I advise you to absolutely avoid dormitories or shared rooms. It’s often more comfortable to pay a bit more for sleeping in a private room.

Here is another point on which you can’t have any control : your roommates and their garbage. During my two years in Oakhouse share houses I was pretty lucky because I only had to deal with one cleanliness issue. One night, a new roommate had drunk too much and had completely destroyed one of the toilets available. Fortunately, Oakhouse intervened quickly enough to resolve this concern since this roommate didn’t want to admit that he was responsible.