How to inquire on a monthly apartment in Japan

Inquiring on a マンスリーマンション / monthly apartment in Japan is usually a form or email—not a one-click cart. The operator (or listing company behind an aggregator) replies with vacancy and a quote. Midstay is not the landlord; when you use Pass, you approve a draft and outreach goes in your name.

This page is the category process: identical facts across forms, one inbox, what 空室確認・見積依頼 means, and what not to put in the mail.

Midstay’s Kyoto board (multi-provider discovery, letter in your name) is in private testing — public signups aren’t open yet, and the public board is still coming soon. Until then, run the hunt across operators yourself. Updates: midstay.app.

What “inquire” means here

Typical paths:

You are requesting vacancy confirmation and an estimate—not placing a hold until the operator says so.

Put identical facts on every form

Send identical dates, headcount, and status on every form — and keep one email so quotes do not scatter.

Copy-paste the same block every time so quotes are comparable:

1. Move-in date (入居希望日)
2. Move-out date (退去予定日) or stay length
3. Headcount (人数) and who stays overnight
4. Status label as the form offers it — e.g. 観光 (tourist), student, work, or whatever options the operator lists
5. Room ID / listing URL when the form is general
6. Hard gates in one short line (e.g. バス・トイレ別 preferred; Wi-Fi needed)

Change one fact mid-thread and you will get mismatched totals. If dates shift, send an explicit update in the same thread.

Use one email for the whole hunt

Scatter is how quotes die:

• Keep one primary address for all monthly inquiries
• Watch spam and promotions folders for JP operator domains
• Reply in-thread so the operator sees history
• Save PDFs / quote attachments with the room ID in the filename

If a friend or partner will also talk to operators, CC once with a clear “please keep this address on the thread” line—do not open a second solo thread for the same room.

空室確認・見積依頼 (vacancy + quote request)

On Japanese weekly/monthly boards and many JP operator pages, the button or form title is often:

• 空室確認 — vacancy / availability check
• 見積依頼 — quote / estimate request
• Combined: 空室確認・見積依頼

What to expect after submit:

• Auto-ack or silence for a day or more
• Reply from the listing company, not always the board brand
• Totals with a validity window (見積有効期限)
• Questions back: passport copy timing, emergency contact, guarantor product, exact status

Treat website “Open” calendars as leads. Email (or a written quote) is the source of truth when they conflict.

Do not put private planning in the mail

Operators need stay facts. They do not need your life story.

Leave out of inquiry mail:

• Private planning narratives unrelated to stay dates
• Budget ceilings framed as negotiation bait
• Long English essays the JP desk will skim past

Keep in:

• Dates, headcount, status checkbox answer
• One-line hard gates
• Passport / ID willingness when asked
• Clarifying questions about fees (初期費用, 光熱費, cleaning, Wi-Fi)

Short, identical, factual beats persuasive.

Japanese replies are normal

Many Kyoto and national monthly operators run Japanese-primary desks even when passport-as-ID is allowed.

Practical habits:

• Expect Japanese; machine-translate carefully; ask again in writing if a fee line is unclear
• Answer in the same thread; bilingual one-liners are fine when the form was JP
• Do not restart on a new English “info@” address for the same listing unless they redirect you
• Passport accepted as ID ≠ English UI or English contract by default

Photo: Jakub Hałun / CC BY 4.0

English inquire when the site is Japanese (EN-on-JP)

Kyoto monthly housing lives in three parallel worlds. Some operators finish inquire → contract in English. Many solid rooms sit on Japanese-only sites or aggregator cards where the form, FAQ, and first reply are Japanese. Passport-as-ID does not mean an English UI.

Passport as ID is not the same thing as an English UI or an English contract.

How to inquire when the UI is Japanese:

1. Identify the room ID and save the listing URL.
2. Find the per-room inquire button (空室確認・見積依頼) before the generic contact desk.
3. Fill required fields with identical facts (dates, headcount, status).
4. In the free-text box, add one short bilingual or English block only if allowed: move-in/out, status as labeled, one-line hard gate, and “Please reply in this thread.”
5. Submit once. Do not open three parallel mails for the same room.

Reply in the same thread even when you write English. Quote unclear fee lines; machine-translate carefully; keep English short. Do not restart on a new English address unless they redirect you.

Soft next step

Midstay is in private testing. Public signups aren’t open yet, and the public board is still coming soon. Midstay is not the landlord — you pay the operator directly for rent and keys. When the board opens, the path stays: Japanese letter in your name → quote → pay operator. Updates: midstay.app.

Related: Monthly mansions in Japan for foreigners · Japan monthly apartments in Kyoto.