I'm currently shopping around for decent apartments around Osaka. I've been looking at those apartment magazines (Chintai and such) and have found some that looked ok to me. The problem is that my J-girlfriend says I shouldn't be looking at the magazines because they is always something "wrong" with them, or else they wouldn't be listed there. She says she got this "gem" of information from a real estate agent when she was looking for an apartment earlier this year.
I find this incredibly hard to believe. I think it's just the real estate agents trying to scam potential renters into paying more money for an apartment. So, my question is, who is right? Are there really "problems" with these apartments (such as someone was murdered, bad pest problem, not in a good area), or is this all just a load of crap propagated by greedy real estate agents?