Why this exists

I'm ゆ. I moved to Japan and immediately ran into the same walls every foreigner hits: agencies that won't work with you, listings you can't read, move-in costs nobody explains, and zero transparency about what rent actually looks like ward by ward.

I couldn't find a single tool that gave foreigners honest, data-backed answers about renting in Tokyo. So I built one.

What HousingAssist is

HousingAssist is an independent data platform for foreigners renting in Tokyo. It's not a real estate agency. We don't take referral fees, we don't partner with landlords, and we don't have sponsored listings. The data is the product.

19,000+ real listings scraped from SUUMO, Homes.co.jp, and at Home — updated regularly
UR Housing vacancies pulled directly from the government API, checked 3x daily
Ward-level rent analytics covering all 23 special wards of Tokyo
Tanu, an AI concierge on Telegram that searches listings, explains costs, and gives neighborhood intel

Why UR matters

UR Housing (Urban Renaissance Agency) is government-run and legally cannot discriminate by nationality. No key money. No guarantor required. No agent fees. For foreigners who keep getting rejected by private landlords, UR is often the clearest path to an apartment. That's why we track every UR vacancy in Tokyo and alert on new ones.

How the data works

We scrape listing data from Japan's three largest rental sites and supplement it with UR's public API. Every listing gets a 5-factor deal score based on rent vs. ward average, key money, deposit, building age, and walk time to the nearest station. No human curation, no editorial bias — just math.

Independent by design

HousingAssist has no financial relationship with any landlord, property manager, or real estate agency. We exist to give you better information, not to steer you toward a commission. When we recommend UR, it's because UR genuinely solves problems for foreigners — not because anyone pays us to say so.

Contact

Questions, feedback, or corrections: hello@housingassist.com

Talk to Tanu: @housingassistbot on Telegram