Ok, who's on on JB from Iwakuni? Last I counted there were only like 3 of us.  Come on, let's dust off the cobwebs & get active!!

My husband and I will be there in July.

Welcome to Japanbases, and also to Iwakuni once you get here. It will be VERY hot in July (we arrived July '09), so life is tough till you get your car & drivers license which will take a couple of weeks. Plan on having a great time & post any questions you have.

I am just now finding about JapanBases.com. We arrived in Iwakuni Nov 2010. Loving everything about it so far. My husband and I live off base near the Kintai and are just waiting for the weather to warm up. Can't wait for winter to be over and the cherry blossoms to bloom! I hope I can share this great resource with more Iwakuni peeps!

No cherry blossoms yet? They're way overdue! I'm outta town right now but hope to see them this weekend when I return. Welcome to the forum, and tell your friends about it. I wanna see a growing iwakuni community on JB!

Glad that you are coming back Thaiguy!

We will be there in a week!! Didn't know what to expect with the weather but hot is good!

See you here. It's been around 75 degrees lately; occasionally rainy; sometimes raining hard (like today). Muggy. Not hot yet; that'll come next month. The climate isn't really too bad here, but some people do complain a lot.

We're coming late August. Very excited to be there. Probably the wrong forum, but, I was wondering if anyone had websites for off base real estate agents in Iwakuni. I've found a couple in Japanese and have been able to sort of translate them with Google Translate. I would like to get an idea with what the off base housing looks like and what we can expect to get for our OHA.

Sorry, the real estate market in 'kuni isn't as developed as Yokosuka. I've never found any good English website; you'll be lucky to find an agent who speaks English, but they all understand 3LDK and related terms so you'll be able to communicate.

I got very limited and unsatisfactory help from the housing office on base, so I went out on my own, found my own agent & my own apartment. I'm very happy with the agent I found, so I'd be happy to get you connected. He is in the Minami-Iwakuni (south Iwakuni) area. If you're looking elsewhere, you'll need another agent, but ours is part of a chain so they could probably connect you with local offices throughout the area.

The housing office on base has been in the pockets of a few realtors for some years now. There were two, Kaz and some heavyset guy who's name I can't remember. They would always use the same realtors and would give people a hard time if they went elsewhere. The prices were so high through the housing office that people started to complain.

Iwakuni being Iwakuni, I seriously doubt much has changed.

Wow, that's reprehensible & certainly illegal if true. I do know when I went for my appointment, they showed me only houses from a certain agent near the base. All of them were exactly contrary to the types of homes I has specified. It was clear I wouldn't make any headway there so I went out on my own, found an agent who showed me 3 nice homes, and I picked the one I wanted. This was July 2 years ago, 105 degrees outside & no car; it made for a very miserable introduction for my wife & me, hiking around a strange town feeling like no one was interested in helping us.

I sent you a PM. ThaiGuy.

Be careful about digging in Iwakuni. The more you dig, the more dirt you have to sort through.

I'd appreciate any help finding an agent or two to show me some places, thanks.

I don't necessarily care if any websites are in Japanese, I can throw them through Google Translate. I saw that the real estate section in yahoo.co.jp had some listings, although they were mainly small apartments, and I'm looking more for houses. I have also seen http://www.toyojisyo.co.jp/ , www.homes.co.jp , and the housing information section of www.isize.com. Toyojisyo appeared to be all around Iwakuni and were mostly apartments, which homes.co.jp and isize had more homes, although they were concentrated around other areas of Yamaguchi.

If you guys see any agents that are advertising their websites, I would appreciate the info, as it seems to be difficult to find just by doing a Yahoo or Google search.

Thank you all for all of the help.