Anybody ever rented from Leo Palace?

[Caustic Saint]

I've been browsing around, checking out different leasing companies and came across Leo Palace (http://www.eg.leopalace21.com/) today.

Is anybody familiar with them? From what I've been able to gather, they tend to rent smaller places (not really "palaces") and give decent discounts if you pay for a longer stretch up front. They don't do the key money thing and all utilities are included - power, water, internet...

Doesn't look like too bad of a deal, depending on where they've got places, and might come in handy if the "end to key money" rule gets ignored by all the lessors in Tokyo.

[ramchop]

Never heard of them but the prices seem alright to me.

One worry is that none of the apartment blocks in their pictures seem to have any neighbours. Must be located in some part of Tokyo that I've never visited, my guess is be prepared for a long commute.

[ultragaijin]

According to their site, "Leopalace21" doesn't have any locations in Tokyo.

We have Leopalace hotels at five main cities

Sapporo
Nigata
Sendai
Nagoya
Yokkaichi

Of course, there are a number of other companies with lease apartments or "weekly mansions" in Tokyo.

They seem like a convenient option and sometimes they really are the best option, but depending on how long you plan to stay and your status, it's usually better in the long run to try and find a real apartment.

Asahi Homes (http://www.asahihomes.co.jp/e/price.html)

Tokyo Apartment Hotel (http://www.tokyustay.co.jp/e/index_flash.html)

Some of the listings in the Japantoday Classifieds (http://classifieds.japantoday.com/biz.asp?action=home&pid=20) have links to companies that may offer similar short-term housing options.

[tidbits]

They seem like a convenient option and sometimes they really are the best option, but depending on how long you plan to stay and your status, it's usually better in the long run to try and find a real apartment.


Ultra is right, depending on how long you intend to stay and your status. I was lucky to have tried 2 of these palaces before- Leo Palace in Tachikawa (West of Tokyo) and when I was in Nagoya a few months back. I really don't know why they name it 'Palace' when it is only 8 tatami. It is also not that cheap too, with the same amount of money, I can get a 2DK in Chiba area.

[Skankster]

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I rented one for work before.
It was a nice place. The rent was a pretty penny in Setagaya but the move in was cheap.

LeoPalace also gives you a IPTV cable TV so you can watch news and stuff in english or also movies.

They have places allllllll over Tokyo.

[crendon]

I am living at LeoPalace right now and it sucks. I just copy and pasted a great description from another forum site:

PostPosted: Sat Jun 03, 2006 1:07 pm Post subject: Reply with quote

I have a personal grudge against LeoPalace. They are definitely cheap in the sense that you don't have to pay key money or thank you money, but you get what you pay for. They make most of that key money/thank you money back from the high rent that they charge you.

First of all their apartments are cheaply built. I have witnessed a 36 room apartment building being fully built and furnished in less than two months. You can preach efficiency all you want but this was because of cheap materials.

The walls are paper thin! You can hear phone coversations and every footstep from the adjacent apartment.

Most are equipped with lofts on the opposite side of the room from the air conditioner. Hot air travels upwards to the loft and the air conditioner has no effect on the loft so prepare a nice fan for your loft in the summer.

The loft is located just above the entrance and coupled with the thin walls you can hear every footstep in the outside corridor just as if you were outside.

LeoPalace will not allow you to use ChibaGas (or maybe it was Tokyo Gas. Anyways, the big gas company that everyone uses). Instead, they require that you use a small local company that charges you triple the price of ChibaGas. I have to pay 10,000 yen a month for a bill that should be around 3000 or less and I don't even have a gas stove!!!

You don't have to pay all those deposits but when you move out they will charge you for any damages to the apartment including dirty carpets, dirty walls, if you smoke then you might have to pay for new wall paper, and any other so-called "damages".

They give you free internet but they have a server that you must log on to and the server blocks a lot of connections. You can forget about downloading music or file sharing! If you use ftp for a website or for any other purpose their server will block your connection. It also will block a lot of MSN messenger functions.

Because the price is cheap you don't always get the best of neighbors. I have met some of the rudest and scariest Japanese living in a Leopalace apartment. Most people use LeoPalace as a short-term solution while they are searching for a new place to live. For the short-term it might be ok but I definitely would not reccommend it for the long-term.