Our House in Okinawa

This is about the most exciting 'toy' they have at the moment.

Thank goodness Chris and I have a sense of humor or we would probably have ended up in the Mental Health department on base this week. We were quite hopeful about our Okinawan digs because we had seen photos online before we got here and had heard from numerous people that you can often negotiate your rent down to the cap the military gives you, which is rank based. So the landlord may have  property listed for 300,000 yen a month, but if it's been sitting vacant for a month they may give it to you for 250,000 yen, then next time they rent it out they ask at 300,000 again. They are basically chancing their luck to get as much as they possibly can out of the military.

This is how I spend my time waiting around in the housing office.

This is how the kids spend their time waiting around in the housing office.

Of course right before we got here the military changed the rules - to stop landlords doing this they introduced rent control. This means whatever the landlord charged his last renter was now that property's rental fee. The landlord is not allowed to charge more than they charged the last person. Likewise, if they cut us a deal they are not allowed to charge the next person higher rent. The result is that the landlords are just not cutting deals like they used to. I totally get why the military made this change, they were losing way too much money, but it still sucks for us.

We saw some horrendous houses this week. As in houses that would make me weep if I had to live in them. Plants growing through the floor boards (the agent dismissed this by saying we would be living in a 'lush' area. More like you had to be a lush to live in that area), hideous 70's wall paper, filthy stench of urine...I just couldn't imagine raising my kids in any of those houses for the next four years.

Sticks have become a favorite toy for Natalie.

Not to be outdone, Dominic went for a full tree branch.

We also saw some really nice houses but they were in an area that only Americans live in. Now obviously we have nothing against (most) Americans but if we are going to be living in Japan for 4 years I want to at least meet some Japanese people. We opted against these big, spacious houses due to the location. 

Then we are shown a house that was PERFECT. I fell in love with it the moment I saw the pictures online, and it didn't disappoint in reality. But it was waaay over our budget and thanks to the above new rule, the landlord wouldn't even think about negotiating. Unfortunately seeing that house meant that pretty much everything else became a disappointment.

 Then yesterday we were shown a house that is owned by the same person who owns the hotel we are in, and it is literally minutes from the hotel. The location is great, the view would have been great but a bloody great house is going up right in front of us, so the great view can only be seen from the top floor. It's 4 bedrooms which is nice, 1700 sq ft and it has a storage area in the garage for Chris' tools.

The outside of the house.

You can see how close we are to the sea

The kitchen is tiny, as in there is absolutely no counter space. For all those who knew us in Charleston, you know how much kitchen stuff we have. So yeah not really sure how that is going to work out but somehow we will make it work - I know my espresso machine will be finding a spot on whatever counter space does exist. It's a nice, quiet, Japanese area which was important to us. I am excited that American sized appliances fit in this house because the Japanese sized appliances just weren't cutting it for us.

The living room and tiny ass kitchen

Living room

 

 

Large downstairs Patio

We move in on September 16 and will use government loaner furniture until ours arrives. I am so glad to be done with house hunting.I think we can turn this house into a home when all our stuff arrives.

Excited to find a little playground

This is a Japanese fridge. You can understand why Dominic thought it was a toy for him to play with.