Why company housing coordinators need a dedicated desk
Most Japanese agents and landlords are not set up to communicate directly with an incoming employee in English, so requests route back through the company contact at every step — from the first inquiry to lease signing.
Without a standing relationship with an advisor, each new hire's housing search begins with the same explanations of budget, area, and company policy — with no institutional memory carried forward.
When several employees relocate in the same window, coordinating viewings, applications, and contracts for each of them in parallel becomes a significant, recurring drain on internal time.
Budget caps, area restrictions, and approval steps are easy to apply unevenly when each relocation is handled ad hoc by whoever has time — a single desk keeps the policy consistent across every hire.
Why TokyoExpat
As Head of Finance and Corporate Function at a foreign company in Japan, Yasuhiro wrote the corporate housing policy and ran assignee relocations end to end — from move-in to tax representative arrangements after departure.
The file is not split across a call center and a rotating agent. The same principal handles requirements, search, negotiation, and move-in, in Japanese and in English.
Nippon Life's real estate desk, a Lone Star Funds affiliate, and Philips Japan as Country Controller — lease term, renewal, and cancellation are read with the same rigour as rent.
What the desk handles
Browse rental listings and Tokyo area guides to help define property and location preferences for your brief. Listings are a starting point for discussion, not confirmation of company-lease eligibility.
Scope of service: TokyoExpat operates as a housing search and coordination advisor. Under this service, TokyoExpat does not collect rent, hold client funds, sublease properties, or provide building maintenance services.
To get started
You don't need a finished brief to reach out — but the fewer rounds it takes to gather the following, the faster the first shortlist lands.
Employee's expected arrival date
Intended assignment duration
Furnishing preference (furnished or unfurnished)
Number of occupants (incl. family)
Housing budget / policy rent cap
Preferred areas, if any
Company housing policy (or none yet)
Lease party: company name or individual
School or commuting requirements
How TokyoExpat compares
| General Agent | Large Corporate Housing Outsourcer | TokyoExpat | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who you deal with | Rotates by branch and availability | Call center plus an assigned coordinator | One licensed broker, start to finish |
| Language | Japanese-first | English available, depending on scale | Bilingual from the first call, including lease-clause explanation |
| Housing range | Broad, unfiltered | Standard company housing within policy | Executive and professional tier |
| Continuity | Resets with every new case | Knows the policy, not necessarily the family | Holds your company's housing policy and history across every hire |
| What it won't do | — | Often will also collect rent and sublease | Does not collect rent, hold deposits, sublease, or manage buildings |
What to expect, and when
Timelines are typical, not guaranteed — off-market or highly specific briefs can take longer.
Who this is for
Companies bringing executives, professionals, or specialists to Tokyo — whether it's a single senior hire or a steady stream of relocations throughout the year.
Teams currently handling housing case by case, through whichever agent happens to speak English, without a consistent point of contact or reporting line.
From executive residences in Minato and Shibuya to professional-grade apartments across central Tokyo — the same search standard I apply to private clients.
Compare company housing costs
Use Edo Partners’ free simulator to compare taxable rental value, housing benefits for social insurance, and employee and employer costs.
Open the company housing simulator →Start with the policy, not the apartment
Before the company can approve a single relocation, someone has to decide who's eligible, whether the lease is in the company's name, how the rent cap is set, and who pays for what. Most companies are working this out from scratch, mid-crisis, for the first assignee. I wrote a decision memo to fix that.
A bilingual working outline — not a finished regulation — that lays out every decision a company needs to make before drafting its own leased-housing policy: eligibility, lease party, cost caps, who pays what, temporary housing, approval authority, and exit terms. Numbers are left as placeholders; the tax treatment of company housing in Japan differs by employee/officer status and needs to be confirmed with your own tax adviser before adoption.
Working outline for internal discussion — not legal, tax, or labor advice. Once your team has a first-pass answer on eligibility, budget, and lease party, the desk below is the next step.
How the service is structured
Full search and lease support for a single employee's relocation — requirements through move-in — for companies with occasional or one-off hires.
TokyoExpat becomes your company's dedicated housing desk for all incoming international employees, with a consistent process and company reporting line across every relocation.
Already have a broker or an internal process? I'll review your existing housing policy or a single lease against Japanese market norms — without taking over the search itself.
Pricing depends on: number of relocations, housing tier, one-off vs. ongoing engagement, and the scope of company reporting and coordination. I'll put together a proposal after an initial conversation about your team's needs.
"Most company housing teams I talk to aren't looking for someone to find one apartment — they're looking for someone who won't make them explain the company's housing policy from scratch every time a new hire lands in Tokyo. That consistency, and being a licensed broker they can actually hold accountable, is what I built this desk around."
Beyond housing itself
Housing is rarely the only thing a new hire needs sorted in their first weeks. I don't run these services myself, but I coordinate the handoff so the company contact isn't left stitching together five separate vendors.
English-speaking electricity, gas, water, and internet setup, coordinated to be live before move-in day.
Rental or purchase, depending on assignment length — introductions to vendors who handle both.
Comparative quotes for the physical move, both on arrival and at end of assignment.
International school shortlisting and English-speaking clinics, drawing on TokyoExpat's existing school and healthcare guides.
A plain-English walkthrough of ward registration and opening a Japanese bank account.
Migiwa, TokyoExpat's AI concierge, answers day-to-day questions in 70+ languages between check-ins with the desk.
A recent engagement
Challenge: A short relocation timeline against a fixed company housing policy, with the employee's family joining shortly after.
TokyoExpat's role: Requirements review against the policy, property sourcing, shortlist and viewings, lease negotiation, and coordination between the employee, the company contact, and the landlord.
Client details are anonymized and shared with permission, or in a form that does not identify the company or employee.
Questions company housing contacts usually ask
Do you set up company-name leases or personal-name leases?
How do you handle key money, renewal fees, and guarantor companies against our housing policy?
What does the company need to approve, and when?
Can you handle three employees relocating at the same time?
Do you support repatriation, mid-assignment cancellation, and move-out in English?
Can we use this alongside our existing corporate housing outsourcer?
Before you talk to the desk
TokyoExpat is licensed and paid to find and negotiate the best property for your company, not to move a specific landlord's inventory.
Edo Partners K.K. · Tokyo Metropolitan Governor (1) License No. 113471.
Names, family composition, and school information shared for a relocation are used only to run that relocation, and are not retained beyond what's needed to support the tenancy.
Scope, restated: TokyoExpat does not collect rent, hold client funds, sublease properties, or provide building maintenance services.