Housing is extremely regulated here compared to Oki. When we were there
housing prices were based more on what rank you were (3 different people
could look at the same house and all 3 would pay whatever their rent
ceiling is). Sasebo is very different. Even how they show you what houses
are available is different. Here all the houses available are placed on a
board and you can only look at 2 a day. You have to give them notice the
next day if that is the house you want or not. The rent price is locked
in. If you are a teacher or contractor and choose to take a house over
200,000 yen per month they will not support it. No appliances, loaner
furniture, AFN satellite or anything like that. It is quite a irksome
concept for me. Most of the housing is really affordable so even though
the amount here is so much less than in Oki I don't think it equals less
of a house.

That being said, the houses are actually nicer here in many cases. They
don't have that shoebox look to them that it seems like a lot of stuff in
Oki has. In some cases not so much. The big difference here from Oki (at
least to me) is the inability to have a normal American stove/oven in the
kitchen. Most places do not accommodate that at all. We did find a house
that was built in 2008 and has over 2000 sq ft. It is American style with
American appliances. The rent is above the 200,000 "cap" that housing
places on you which meant that we didn't find it through the housing
office. Unlike Oki very few of the realtors speak English so it's not like
it is there where you just call the different agencies to try and find a
place. We just lucked out through a friend of a friend (all teachers).

I'm not sure how other places in mainland do things. You may have told me
before but which school are you at? When my husband was active duty I
worked as an aide while we were there and lived close to Comprehensive
Park. I would swap more details but don't want to do so on the chatboard.
Perhaps we can trade contact info sometime.

On 10/31/09, Mainland Curious wrote:
> dodds para,
>
> What kind of a place will you be able to get with the LQA they pay you
> in Sasebo? I looked it up, and saw that Sasebo's LQA is about $20K less
> than Okinawa's for my pay band. I'd like to eventually put in for a
> transfer to mainland, but I'm afraid that I'll lose a lot of square
> footage or have to live in a place that is old and starting to show it.
> I've read in your old posts that you once lived in Okinawa - can you
> compare the off-base housing?
>
> Thanks!
>
> On 10/31/09, dodds para wrote:
>> It sounds very mysterious. I hope you'll post soon and give us
>> details on your move. I know there was some debate about COLA and
>> housing. Now you can give the "Official" story! Congrats again. We
>> moved to Sasebo at the end of August and don't regret it at all.
>> Everyone is loving it here. Our only sadness is that we have been in
>> lodging for 2 months and still have one month to go before we can
>> move into our house.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 10/29/09, Sugasmile wrote:
>>> That's good to hear!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 10/28/09, Me wrote:
>>>> Everything is going fabulously. Travel orders should be here
>>>> this week :) Its a long story as to why I had the threads
>>>> removed...but all is well and I am off to Guam in the very
>>>> near future! A dream come true!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 10/28/09, Sugasmile wrote:
>>>>> Nervous/Curious aka ESE Teach, what happened with Guam? We
>>>>> are left hanging for more. Is everything okay? I noticed
>>>>> that your offer thread is gone, too. Please let us know
>>>>> what happened.

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