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| I would certainly be interested in advice Richard. We are moving at the end of the month and will begin the house hunting process straight away. We pretty much know where we are regarding the financial side of things, but advice on possible hurdles and things to look out for would be gratefully received, as this will be our first purchase in Switzerland.
I'll post again once we have begun the process........
cheers | |
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Will be more than happy to help but the first hurdle and the biggest one is the mental barrier which I guess you have jumped over. And wrt to the financial are you sure?! I do not mean with this the amounts you have at your disposal but actually the ways available to go about it and how it works.
I think and here I am talking from experience that you need to plan the process not just dive in. I know that is not what I did and it required a rethink and change of strategy to align with, more or less, the rental mentality. The key point here is to find the right balance between tax, qualify of life, stress and space and that is not always easy.
1. Naturally you want the lowest tax but this has one of the highest impacts on the cost of the living space and it is not a straight calculation you need to assess the deductables from where you are.
2. If you are young you might want to live in the city, if you are not so young you might want to be out a bit. If you have a family you might want a garden and so it goes on.
3. Stress - never thought of this before but the stress factor is a hidden part to consider - how far to a bus stop or railway station, how far to a shop (not Volg!), how far to work(time not distance), how far away from negative factors such as motorways, railways, airports(!).
4. Space is determined by what you can afford which is often but not always determined by other factors such as current popularity and tax levels. You need to determine three things with respect to space, what you would like, what you can do with out(ie ground floor flat or roof flat, garden, two indoor car spaces etc) and what is the minimum ie must have. This helps with search engines as you can give in these criteria.