Rental homes

On Friday, we meet up with our last real estate agent. All Thursday the wife was trying to talk me into accepting one of the Ishibasi homes and I didn't want to make any compromise -- if I could, so I kept saying to wait and see what the agent on Friday can deliver. The wife was against it, she wanted to say yes quickly so as not to lose out on a good place.

Friday came and we went to Kobe to visit and agent out there. The houses we had bookmarked and printed out for viewing were gone or were on top of a hill and no buses ran during winter and the roads were iced and it was dangerous to walk down. So, those options were out.

The agent go on the internet and found 400 options and did his best to find the better deals and best prices. We ended up with three places for viewing. When asking for a key, he discovered we had been beat by another couple thirty minutes earlier who had already signed the contract and placed a deposit. So we had two places. And guess what...we loved both of them. They were very different but when I saw the second place, it was sold on sight (despite right wing Japanese Nazis next door - fuck ém). There were two apartments available in this terrace house block. 105 and 102. 105 was taken the day before and we were working off the floor plans for 105. Luckily, 102 was bigger and better laid out, opening all the spaces. It is 3 stories and the ground floor is an empty space of 22-jo (huge).

And there is an extra space behind a half length wall where I plan to set up the home gym. I've been offer a bench press and bars and weights from my brother-in-law as he never uses them. I also plan on getting a blow flex if I can find one. On the other side of the wall, we'll set up the wide screen 50 inch TV and get cable running through for tv and internet, not sure if we will use J:com or Hikari Fiber as they both offer 76 channels. But that stuff is for later consideration. I am think J:com as they offer 160M upload/download speeds.As the space is so large, we are planning to add (later) a projector for movies and as the wall is lumpy white, we will probably get a large screen and hook that up. Wow, I have so many ideas my head my bursting.

The second floor (where the front door opens to) contains the kitch (standard stuff) and the LDK is 15 at least and L shaped and the L shape starts at the far side of the room near the kitchen area. There is room for a huge dining table, another tv and a couple of sofas and ezy-chairs. On the third floor are three rooms. Not super large but big enough for a queen size bed, vanity and some other stuff. The tatami room will be used for guests. And the small 5.5-jo room will be used as a private lesson room. (Yes, I am planning on opening a small school, one on one classes and 5,000 yen a month for 4 lessons. No joining fee.) This is the layout of 105 (not the apartment we chose as there is no map available for that), the rooms are larger and the LDK flip it around sideways into a box shape.

Excuse the narrowness of the below video of the terrace house we are renting. I should say 'hopefully renting' as we are only 99% clear at the moment. All credit checks are clear and we passed them all. So, I am unsure what is taking so long, but our agent (who turns out to be the boss of that company) reckons all is good. 



Fingers crossed we get this place. UPDATE: We got it. Got the call today.

This post turned out a bit longer than I thought, so I will blog about estate agents tomorrow.

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