do you guys have anything like 礼金 and 敷金 in your own countries when renting a new place? or that is really a japanese thing?

敷金, yes, always (security deposit). 礼金, not really, or at least not as expensive as Japan; it’s at most a small application fee or something (10-100 USD?)

Oh, there’s also a lock replacement fee, but it’s minimal too.

Yeah, it feels like japan is specially expensive in terms of move in fees

Laws depend on states but at least in Massachusetts it’s limited to those.

In Brazil we also have some small fees, but nothing compared to these here

the most expensive is 保証金 if you don't have any guarantor or form of guarantee

But 礼金 is just absurd haha

Well... my most recent agent fee in America was 1 month rent. Felt a lot like 礼金

@DariusJahandarie Oh hey I didn't know you lived in MA. I just recently moved here.

I do! If you’re ever in Boston let me know. Also I run a Japanese practice meetup which you’re welcome to come to if you’re interested :)

@DariusJahandarie Did you set that practice meetup yourself, or was it something that you found? I've been looking around in my area to find something like that, and haven't had much luck.

It is New Mexico though, so I shouldn't be too surprised...

It was an existing event which I took over

Shouldn’t be hard to start something new especially if you’re in an area with Japanese people (near a college or large city etc)

What do you use for your venue?

There's a college here (UNM), but I can't really say that the Japanese speaking population is really all that big here.

Libraries are usually happy to host such things too

Small world. I live in Boston. If I feel motivated, maybe I'll show up to one.

@ajsmart We have multiple meetups a week at different venues. Usually restaurant, bar, or food court (public as well as uni)

@Ringil Sure! Google for Boston Japanese Meetup, that’s us. I run the one in Kendall Square, but if you go to another one let me know, I can join :)

@DariusJahandarie That's awesome. How do you get people to join? Is it a word of mouth thing, or do you have some sort of social media presence?

If you couldn't tell, I'd really like to see about setting up something similar.

Assuming there are enough people in the area that speak Japanese.

It's rather rare in the hispanic/native american crowds.

We use meetup.com. People find us either via organic searching or word of mouth. Japanese members are almost all via word of mouth