[Thrownaway]

Good point. You're probably right. People with $10k/mo expat packages don't know how to check email, much less register and post to a forum. Also, $6k/mo as the rest of his "wages" (his words) wouldn't mesh with that kind of housing allowance. I know the military contracts around that salary level (Yokosuka area, south of T-town) get ~$1.7k-2.4k/month for the housing allowance.

...on second thought, I just checked the charts and it's not that much of a stretch. A guy on a USG contract (or corp contract that takes cues from gov housing rates, which is common) using military rates at just above his salary level (with dependents) gets ~$8k/mo for rent and $1k/mo for utilities.

That's not a typo. That's also just the military rate. Private corp would likely beat that.

Apparently the survey folks who do the housing cost studies for Tokyo either like gold-plated bathtubs, or are surveying only American-style single family homes or something.


Quote from military housing rate chart around that pay grade for Tokyo, Japan:


Allowances
Effective: 20080901
Local Currency US DOLLARS
OHA Rental Allowance 766667.00 $ 7903.78
Utility/Recurring maintenance/miscellaneous Allowance 93452.00 $ 963.42
Move-In-Housing Allowance (MIHA) 68322.00 $ 704.35