If you have ever looked through the Japanese property listings, you might have noticed that the floor plans feature a lot of abbreviation markings so unfamiliar compared to what we are used to.
We are going to figure out what does all of those terms mean.
Everything is much easier to decode than you could have expected. L stands for Living room, D is for Dining room, K stands for Kitchen. Easy, right? S is an indication for a Service room or Storage room. As a rule, it would be either a walk-in closet or some space for storage to spare your living space from the sight of your belongings. At some luxury properties or detached houses a service room may be so spacious you can use it as an extra bedroom or a home office.
The terms are easy to understand, but how about the floor plans? Most of the Japanese condo units are what we would call a studio type apartment. They often have an open-plan with no doors or walls separating the kitchen and living/dining room areas from the private space.
Generally, zoning at the Japanese apartments is indicated by different flooring or light partations such as breakfast bar.
When you see something like 3LK or 1DK, the floor plan would differ.
A combination of numbers and capital letters would mean a property with rooms separated from the studio zone.
1R abbreviation stands for one room apartment which is the most compact format with open plan storing a tiny kitchen area and some private space. Such smaller properties may feature a loft, which is popular with younger tenants at the moment. Interesting that in many cases 1R and 1K room plans may seem totally the same except for the only slight difference. A 1K would have a partition between the living space and the kitchen which is great at the point that the food smell won't bother you.
How about the mysterious J letter appearing at the room measurement section? We may be using meters or feet to measure the total room space, but Japan has its traditional measurement unit called jo or tatami (a traditional straw mat used for flooring) to express the room size.
Actually 1 jo stands for the 1 tatami mat measurement which is 0,9 m x 1.8 m. So,1 jo is equal to 1.62 ㎡ or 17.4 sq. ft. If you try to do some calculations, you will understand that the common 6 jo standard Japanese bedroom would be a 9.6 ㎡ (104.4 sq. ft.) space.
Another thing you may notice is that some properties may have Japanese style rooms with straw mat flooring, which would be indicated by "washitsu" term. It's easy to spot at the room plan as they are often depicted with the real tatami mat count used for the flooring.
This is how a 6 jo, 8 jo, 10 jo and 12 jo room would be shown in the room plan.
If you are not a fan of straw flooring, there are plenty of ways to get rid of it depending on your budget, so don't be afraid to consider purchasing a property with a Japanese style room. Though, the newly constructed properties often have no tatami rooms, as this type of flooring is quite hard to maintain so as a result it's unpopular with the younger tenants. Are you ready for your Japanese investmnent property hunting now?
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