Lose weight to pay less rent

The amount you pay for a rented house is normally determined by the number of rooms and the location. But at one shared property in Japan, the cost has nothing to do with the size of the structure - it's all about the size of the tenent.

It looks like a regular shared house. But it's not just rooms that are available for rent at this Osaka property, but a diet too. The rules are simple: for every kilo an individual loses or gains, the rent varies by approximately 10 dollars.

The company behind this shared house project runs beauty and cosmetics businesses, and hopes to help women reach their healthy goals.

"Since the rent is lower if you lose weight, we thought overweight people would come to live here," said Mari Kataoka from Broad Enterprise. "But we found out that many people who already have a great body (come here), and their goal is to maintain that physique."

The shared house has been running for about eight months, and currently has about 20 female residents. They get to use a gym area, and also benefit from discounts at various beauty companies.

Although shared living is still not very common in Japan, the ladies think they've made the right choice coming here.

One resident, Chika Matsubara, said, "I had never lived alone so I was worried, but that's when I found this share house. The rent is cheaper if I lose weight, and even though I left my parents' home there are many other people, so it's less stressful. I thought it's like killing two birds with one stone."

But there is a catch.

The house offers free snacks, and the women are welcome to help themselves to as much as they can eat. But this additional temptation is not a ploy by the operators to get residents to pay more rent. Still, that doesn't stop residents from opening an average of 40 packets of snacks every month.

Yuko Maeda often falls for the temptation, but then tries to make up for it. "I go to a beauty salon and volunteer to model, or get lymphatic drainage or get rid of cellulite, to keep my body shape," she said.

So it's down to the residents to decide what's best for them. But in the end, the house provides an incentive to save money, and stay healthy.