Renting a Fully-Furnished Apartment in Osaka

As Stacey would like to say, I spent 200 hours and 2 years researching fully-furnished apartment rental options in Japan. While that may be a bit of an overkill, we did find a great little place in a wonderful location in the Osaka Bay area.

Who did we use?

While Tokyo seems to have plenty of options when it comes to longer stay fully-furnished apartments, it’s slim pickings when it comes to Osaka.

In the end we had it narrowed down to three places: AB Housing Osaka, Ex-Pat Apartments, and Melon Apartment.

While each offering came with some good and bad points, we eventually decided on AB Housing Osaka.

What’s it like?

Our landlord Alex has been extremely helpful in getting us situated and settled in. He gave us detailed directions on how to get from the airport to a nearby location where he would pick us up. Even though we got into Osaka city around 10:30 pm, he was there to meet us and take us on a tour of the apartment.

So far during our stay he has set us up with a prepaid cell phone to use as well as a couple of bikes to help us get around the area. It’s been great since it turned out to be very difficult to find a cell phone store willing to set you up with a prepaid phone.

Surprisingly, none of the apartment sites we looked at had a lot of pictures or any video to show the places. Since seeing the place is a major deciding factor before purchasing, I thought I would give you a quick tour through our Osaka apartment.

Since we rented the apartment I’ve noticed that the price has gone up to about $1500/month for a 2 bedroom fully-furnished. Although the location near the subway is very convenient, the price may be a little high for next time. If I can, I plan to swing by Ex-Pat Apartments and take a look at what they have to offer as well.