Reikin - gift money

Recently I've renewed the lease contract of my apartment which is valid for another two years. It was the first time for me to renew a lease, since every apartment I've lived in before I chose not to live in for a longer term. However Japan has a lot of peculiar customs in rental agreements. Those customs are hard to understand for me but more so for foreigners. Especially "reikin", gift money is considered as a big obstacle for almost all renters. You often need to pay one-month or two-months reikin*. Also some apartments demand no reikin. What are the differences among these reikin conditions?

*I've lived only in the Kanto region, so all customs I mention here are common only in this region.

Several websites explain details and backgrounds of "reikin", so here I will say what I've learned from my own grueling experiences to find a nice and inexpensive apartment in Tokyo. First, apartments demanding no reikin usually have some serious problems. Usually the building is too close to a busy road, highway or railway. Or it's very far from stations and/or stores. I don't recommend any apartments demanding both no reikin and a deposit (shikikin in Japanese). They will give you a lot of troubles.

On the other hand, many old apartments - I mean more than 20 years old - demand only one-month reikin. If you see old apartments demanding two-months reikin, the owners and/or agents are VERY confident to find renters soon. Surely some are worth it but others are possibly just bluffs. It's sometimes possible to negotiate with an owner or agent to ask for a discount on reikin.

If you are okay with old concrete apartments, I recommend buildings over 35 years old. They were built with a large amount of materials from 60s to early 70s - during the years of high economic growth in Japan. If you are looking for this type of apartment, I recommend condominiums or public housing, not buildings owned by a single owner. Also you need to check carefully all facilities -especially electric capacity, water pressure and quality.