By the HalfKey team
Same Tokyo apartment on five sites: duplicates and bait ads
Several agents can advertise one apartment at once, and the law caps what any of them may charge you. The copy you should worry about is the one nobody will confirm by unit number, or the one still online weeks after it was let.
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If you keep seeing the same Tokyo apartment under different agents, usually with slightly different fees, you are looking at one rental shared through an agents' network. That is normal and legal. The copies describe the same landlord, the same contract and the same deposit. What changes is the agent you deal with and what that agent charges or adds.
A different problem is the listing that was never really available. Japan calls this おとり広告 (otori kōkoku — bait advertising), and it is banned. You can check for the warning signs from your phone before you arrange a viewing.
Why one apartment appears many times
Agents in Japan share rentals through レインズ (REINS), a members-only system run by organisations approved by the transport ministry. REINS explains that when a member agent registers a home on behalf of someone who wants to let it, other agents can search for it and propose it to their own customers. The public cannot log in, so what you see is the same apartment on several portals under several agents' names.
The agent the landlord asked to find a tenant is sometimes called the 元付 (motozuke) agent. Any other agent who brings you to that apartment is a 客付 (kyakuzuke) agent. Either can handle your application. The landlord, the management company and the contract do not change depending on which door you walk through.
What actually differs between the copies
The agent's fee is where the copies differ most, and it has a legal ceiling. The transport ministry's notice on brokerage fees, last revised in 2024, caps the total an agent may collect from landlord and tenant together at 1.1 times one month's rent. For a home, as opposed to a shop or office, the rules also cap each side's share. The tenant's share is capped at 0.55 times one month's rent, which is half a month plus consumption tax, and so is the landlord's. An agent may charge you more than that only if you agreed to it when you first asked the agent to act for you.
With an invented rent of ¥100,000, half a month is ¥50,000 and the tax takes it to ¥55,000. A quote asking you for ¥110,000 is only within the rules if you agreed to it when you first asked that agent to act for you, not when the bill arrived. An agent who wants a full month from you is asking for your consent, and you can decline.
| What you compare | Through the landlord's agent | Through another agent |
|---|---|---|
| The apartment, landlord and lease | Same | Same |
| Your agent fee | Up to half a month plus tax, more only with your prior agreement | Same ceiling |
| Extra lines on the quote | The landlord's charges plus any add-ons this agent sells | The landlord's charges plus this agent's add-ons: compare line by line |
| Questions about the building | Usually answered directly | Relayed to the landlord's agent, so slower |
| Room to negotiate | Talks to the landlord directly | Negotiates through the other agent |
Ask each agent for the full move-in total in writing, with every line named. The advertising rules say an ad must show the guarantee company's fee and any insurance you have to buy. A guarantee company charges you a fee and pays the landlord if you miss the rent. The Tokyo-area advertising council's June 2026 enforcement notice penalised an agent partly for leaving exactly those amounts out of rental ads. If one copy of a listing shows a lower total, find out which line is missing before you call it cheaper.
What a bait listing is
The industry's advertising code, the 不動産の表示に関する公正競争規約 (the fair competition code on real-estate advertising), bans three things in its Article 21: advertising a home that does not exist, advertising a home that exists but cannot be rented, and advertising a home the agent has no intention of letting you rent. The code applies to agents who belong to the regional fair-trade councils. A separate Fair Trade Commission rule extends the same ban to agents outside those councils. The transport ministry reminded industry bodies in January 2023 that the Real Estate Brokerage Act's Article 32 covers the same conduct, and gave two concrete examples.
The first is the classic bait. A home is advertised below the going rate to get you into the shop. Then comes a story about why you can't have it (someone else took it, the neighbours are noisy, there was a sudden leak) and a push towards something else. The second is simply leaving a let apartment online. The ministry's notice says that failing to remove a home promptly after it is let counts as bait advertising, and so does posting a home that was already taken when the ad went up.
The second kind takes no plan, only neglect, so you are more likely to run into it. In the June 2026 case above, the agent had kept nine let rentals advertised for between 16 days and more than seven months after they were taken. The federation of advertising councils' 2019 guideline says agents must refresh online listings at least every two weeks and delete a let home as soon as they learn of it, even mid-cycle.
Three checks before you travel
Look for the date line. The same guideline says the advertising code requires every online listing to show when it was registered or last updated, and when the next update is due. It also complains that agents often bury that line in small print at the bottom. Scroll down and find it. A listing last updated a month ago is a listing nobody is maintaining.
Compare the price with the same building. Search the building's name on the portal and look at the other units with the same floor plan. A copy priced well below its neighbours, with no reason given, is the pattern the ministry's notice describes.
Before you travel, send the agent the listing link and ask two things: is this exact unit, by room number, still open today, and can we book a viewing of this unit. SUUMO's own advice adds two practical habits: ask to be told the moment the listing closes, and confirm again on the morning of the viewing. Agreeing to meet at the building rather than the shop makes a last-minute switch to "something similar nearby" harder to stage. If the agent will not confirm the unit number, or swaps the plan when you arrive, leave and use another copy of the same listing.
If you think you were baited
Portals take reports. SUUMO says its listing pages carry a form near the bottom for suspicious properties, and that a dedicated team checks the facts after a report.
The 首都圏不動産公正取引協議会 (the Tokyo-area real-estate fair-trade council) also takes complaints about advertising by phone on weekdays, 10:00 to 12:00 and 13:00 to 16:30, at 03-3261-3811, or by post with a copy of the ad. Have ready the advertiser's name, where the ad appeared and when you saw it. The council warns that it will not report back to you. It also does not handle contract disputes. For those, find the licence number on the agent's own ads and contact the office that issued it. A number that starts with 東京都知事 (the Tokyo governor) points you to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.
Both routes work better with a screenshot that shows the date, so take one before you ring the agent, not after.