Easy topic for meeting of 28th May

[MollyAgnes]

Sayonara to the Rabbit Hutch: Living With Roommates in Japan

From The Wall Street Journal

Kana Arai, left, and Kumi Tahara founded real-estate agency 'Tokyo Girls' Real Estate,’ an apartment-share agency that caters to working women in their 30s.

TOKYO -- Olivia Burrell, a 32-year-old Canadian, was fed up with living in tiny studio apartments in Tokyo where she could see and smell her kitchen from her bed. She’s now living with five Japanese women in a spacious 6-bedroom apartment in Harajuku, a buzzy neighborhood in the city center.

Japan has no real tradition of roommates: In Tokyo, one of the world's most densely populated cities, the concept of having roommates has never been popular. The majority of young Tokyoites choose to live in small, soulless studios known as usagi goya in Japanese, or "rabbit hutches." Now, a growing number of relatively affluent women in their 20s and 30s have started to create demand for a new segment of the Japanese real-estate market: apartments to share. Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers last year and foreign business people forced to leave, many three- and four-bedroom apartments have been vacant for months.

Kumi Tahara, 27, and Kana Arai, 32 , stepped in and founded a real-estate agency named "Tokyo Girls' Real Estate." They persuaded some landlords to let them slice up four-bedroom apartments into as many as 10 smaller rooms, which they then started renting out to young Japanese women.

One apartment in Roppongi, the expat center in Tokyo, cost 450,000 yen a month (about $5,000) before its previous tenants left. Ms. Tahara and Ms. Arai redesigned the place, chopping it up into eight small rooms, which they rented for 80,000 yen apiece. They increased rental income by 190,000 yen a month, of which they receive a 10% cut.

Central to the success of Ms. Arai and Ms. Tahara's business is that they redecorate and redesign interiors themselves, adding touches such as bathtubs, gold wallpaper, lights on mirrors and disco balls. And men aren't ever allowed inside the women's shared homes.

Demographic shifts in Japan have created a big group of single women who work late, are often out on the weekends and just want a convenient place to crash. The average age for marriage in Japan is steadily increasing, and fewer females want to live at home with their parents. Meanwhile, salaries are decreasing and women want to maintain their lifestyles. Rent is the first thing they cut.

Ms. Burrell, who speaks Japanese, says she was bummed out at first about the "no men" rule. "I was a little disappointed because I have a lot of male friends, but, ultimately, it makes sense. There are a lot of good things about sharing. After living alone for so long here, I needed to be more conscious of people. I'll learn a lot."

Questions)

1.What problems or issues do you think roommates are likely to face (if you have experience or not, let’s share on our thoughts!)?

2.Do we have an established rommate culture? If not, do you think people in Korea would be open to the idea of sharing an apartment with strangers? How about the other countrie’s cases?

3.Or if you have any experiences on your co-staying with someone anywhere in your life, let’s talk about it.(Some episodes or something to happen in your story)

[Ernesto Agustin Lee]

Molly 토픽 고마워요. 수고하셨어요. 토요일에 뵐께요~ 좋은 한 주~

[Iriskorean]

Molly~*^^* 수고하셨습니다~*^^* 행복한 한 주 보내세요 ! *^.~*