I would look at a few more items thatn how noisy it is around the building. I would look at transportation links, supermarket location, and a wealth of other factors. The noise level will largely be drowned out by good double glazing.

Landlords come in all shapes and sizes here. All are very tied to certain legal practivces and as such the consumer is very wwell protected. If you go through KEN or similar, they take a legal repsonsibility to make sure all of the i's are dotted, and the t's are crossed. They all have legal credentials to do this that must be kept up to date. Deal with this maze through a person who has taht going for them, and you will likely not get bamboozled.

Key money can be negotiated to an extent, and deposit to an extent. More so with smaller landlords. Another option is to include the key money (i.e. not the deposit) in the rent and pay 1/24 of it each onth over a 24 moth contract. You still pay key money, but it is included in the rent which up to a certain number will be happily paid by the firm. Figure 2 months deposit and up to 2 months key money. Bigger landlords charge no key money, but higher deposits.

If your friend needs a good and fairly comprehensive poster size map of central tokyo to peg with references to places he has seen or may be interested in I can get that for you.

Mike