#8: Review of Leopalace & Freebell Apartments, Nagoya

A guide to short term lets in Nagoya, Japan.

I've been meaning to write this for a while, and I hope it comes in useful for those of you that are looking for short term accommodation in Nagoya. In case you don't already read my blog, I'm a British girl studying at University here for a year. I live in an all girls boarding house, so when my fiance decided he wanted to come and visit for 3 months I started to look for an apartment for him.

After flicking through google for a while, I came up with a few options that supposedly have English speaking staff. If anyone could suggest more I can add here, please let me know via the comments section or twitter.

Apartments

- Freebell Apartments (Nagoya station/Meieki)
- Leopalace (Shinsakae)
- Japan Residence (Higashi-Sakura & Fushimi)
- Apollo Properties I have been told this company has a few fully furnished apartments in Nagoya. They have no information on their website at the time of writing this, but maybe you could try e-mailing them.
- Sumaino Ichiban Again, I don't know much about this company, and a lot of their website seems to be in Japanese, but it looks as though they have a fair few properties and it may be worth contacting them for further assistance in English.

Guest Houses

- Freebell Guest House (Horita)
- Otohaya Guest House (near Nagoya station/Meieki)
- Hostel Ann (Kanayama)

I contacted a few estate agencies too but unfortunately they weren't able to help me for just 3 months. It may be a good idea to try this if you are staying longer though.

We moved to Leopalace first, but then moved to Freebell after the first month. You can read my story below, but I will say now that I wholly recommend Freebell. It was very hassle free, convenient and we got more space than an average Japanese apartment.

My first step was to go and view both Leopalace (Shinsakae) and Freebell, as those were the two that matched our requirements best. There was only one English speaking staff member at Leopalace. She was really lovely and friendly, but unfortunately her English was quite poor, so we communicated in a mix of broken English and Japanese. The flats were quite small, but had a lot of storage space. It had a main room with a semi-double bed, TV and table. Off this there was a hall with a very small kitchen unit, a washing machine and a bathroom. The building and the flats are very clean and new, and the location is perfect - just a few minutes bike or subway ride to the downtown area of Sakae.

As for Freebell, the flats are not as attractive or as new as Leopalace, but they are still clean and much larger. They typically have 2 bedrooms (each with a semi-double bed), a bathroom/washing machine and a large kitchen with a dining table, sofa and wide screen TV. The location of Freebell is also very convenient, it is situated next to the Lucent Tower in the Nagoya station/Meieki area.

So both had their merits but for me the main factor was cost. I got a price quote from both companies on my visits, and was under the impression that Leopalace was much cheaper. So I went with them. I went to their office about 3 weeks before the move in date to sign the paperwork. I ended up being there for 2 hours as the English speaker could not put what she needed to say into words. We communicated through a native speaker at their Tokyo branch over the phone (passing back and forth) and through typing into an internet translator tool. When I got to the final forms, it was only then I realised that they had added on a lot of extra fees and charges, including internet fee and a large deposit. It was very foolish of me but I went ahead with it anyway, just wanting something to be sorted out. Besides it was still a little bit cheaper than Freebell.

Apart from the initial problems, there wasn't a much else I could really fault about the place. Nothing came with the flat apart from bedding (one pillow for us both). We had to buy kitchenware and towels. We didn't even have anywhere to hang our wet clothes, so we had to create a makeshift washing line on our veranda. I noticed the cancellation policy said we can cancel after 4 weeks if we wanted to and get our deposits/remaining 2 months rent back (minus a small charge). We kept this in mind in case we wanted to have more space. Just as I thought, after a month we were a little bit fed up with being cramped. We were also quite worried about something happening and them keeping all of our large deposit. So we took the risk and moved over to Freebell. We got all of our money back from Leopalace, but it took them a month. It didn't feel like an apartment there, but like a hotel room, and so I don't think the hassle was worth it.

We visited the Freebell office and the staff were very friendly with perfect English. To obtain our flat, we literally had to sign one form. There was no hidden fees or costs, no deposit. It was all included in the rent. We paid upfront and moved across from Leopalace. Straight away we were delighted and I wished that I'd just gone with them from the start. They included everything we needed in our rent; bedding, kitchenware, towels, dish washing supplies, shampoo, conditioner, toilet roll and soap. The flat was nice and roomy and we enjoyed cuddling up on our sofa infront of the huge TV. My fiance has gone home now and I miss our time there very much, we had such a lovely time.

I'm sorry that was quite lengthy but hopefully I've helped if you are considering Leopalace or Freebell. I'm sorry that I couldn't be more specific about costs in this entry - I both can't remember them all and don't really want to reveal any details publicly over how much we spent. If anyone would like to ask me a question please go ahead, again comments section or twitter is fine. I will also try and provide a link to some photos soon.