Rising rents in Tokyo are gradually changing how young people, especially those living alone, search for housing. Many want to live relatively close to their workplaces in central Tokyo while keeping rent low. This clash of priorities has made ultra-compact apartments increasingly popular.
I visited a 22-year-old dental hygienist who lives in a studio apartment near a major station in Tokyo’s 23 wards. It’s about a 10-minute walk to the station. Built six years ago, the apartment measures just 9 square meters and includes a loft.
High Occupancy Rates
Visiting the apartment, it was even smaller than I had imagined. The living area is roughly the size of three tatami mats. I could nearly touch both walls if I stretched out my arms. A futon sat on the loft above the ladder. The shower and toilet are separate, but there is no bathtub.
The woman recalled, “When I first saw the room, I thought, ‘Wow, this is really small.’ My room at my parents’ house in northern Kanto is bigger.” Still, her reason for choosing the apartment is clear. The rent is only ¥60,000 JPY (about $390 USD) a month, and while commuting from her parents’ home would take over an hour, living here cuts her commute to around 40 minutes.
The small space makes storing clothes a challenge, but she said, “Lately, I’ve been trying not to buy too many clothes. I’ve gotten used to the limited space.”
A tour of the ultra-compact apartment.
The building has 15 studio apartments. From the outside, it looks like a single house on a roughly 98-square-meter lot, but inside, a shared entrance leads to separate units.
According to Spiritus, a real estate company in Minato, Tokyo, which manages about 1,500 ultra-compact apartments like this one, the occupancy rate is 99.9%. About 90 percent of tenants are in their 20s or 30s. Because rents are often set at 30 percent or more below market rates, a company representative said, “When a vacancy opens, it fills up before the next one becomes available.”
Old or Small
At the same time, with remote work becoming widespread, some young people are moving to larger apartments farther from stations when renewing their leases. Among this group, older apartments, known as “chikufuru,” or aged buildings, are gaining attention. According to Tokyo-based real estate service At Home, even apartments over 30 years old are seeing increased demand, and rents are trending upward.
The popularity of both ultra-compact and older apartments reflects the rapid rise in rents.
Rent vs Salary
A preliminary survey by the Institute of Labour Administration shows that the average starting salary for university graduates joining 197 Tokyo Stock Exchange Prime-listed companies in FY2025 is ¥255,115 (around $1,650). This is a 6.3% increase over the previous year and the highest since the survey began in 1967. In recent years, the growth rate has steadily increased.
However, rent increases in Tokyo have outpaced starting salaries. According to real estate information service LIFULL HOME’S, the average rent for single-person apartments in the 23 wards was ¥119,139 (around $770) in November, up 16.1 percent from the previous year, continuing a strong upward trend.
Currently, only a few companies offer corporate housing or housing subsidies. With the persistent concentration of people in Tokyo, there is a chronic shortage of apartments for singles moving to the city for school or work, giving landlords an environment where raising rents is relatively easy.
Toshiaki Nakayama, chief analyst at LIFULL HOME’S Soken (Research Institute), notes that given Tokyo’s challenging housing situation, “Among young people, the trend of living in small or older apartments, and thereby maintaining a slightly lower standard of living, is likely to continue growing.”
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(Read the article in Japanese.)
Author: Yukako Ueki, The Sankei Shimbun
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