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| I agree that that's what everyone implicitly does, but without going into any personal details, here's how we come up on all those matters:
Permit Status:
Both spouse and I are on long-term permits working for Swiss Federal Institutions
Contract Length:
Spouse - indefinite (she's a post doc till september and then an asst. prof)
Me- At least half a decade
Ratio of rent to earnings:
We're significantly well off
Marital Status:
Young, married, strong careers. No plans of children (what the agency wanted)
Gut Feeling:
I visited them, tried being very amicable, even spoke as German as i possibly could. I really wanted this place
Now honestly, what possible reason could I be given for not getting the apartment? I'm waiting for the rejection letter... | |
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My sympathies. I think the issue is not that you were not worthy of the apartment, but rather that the agency wants to deal with someone with less paperwork--and I bet they had at least 20 other applicants who fit that bill. I don't know anything about housing in Zurich, but in Lausanne, all of my non-Swiss work colleagues (at the University where I am a postdoc) have had significantly more trouble finding apartments than the native Swiss. The most reasonable explanation for this that I have heard is that being non-Swiss and not a native speaker of German (or French, depending on your canton), just makes it that much more paperwork for the landlord, and they can afford to be picky.
If I were you, I wouldn't take it personally, and don't generalize to the country as a whole. There are a bunch of things that annoy me about Lausanne, but I think that *individual people* are not at all as discriminatory as that housing interview might suggest.
For example, my roommate is Swiss German, and she was not at all concerned with me being not EU, she just wanted to make sure I had all the right paperwork for the agency (which did include income), and that we would get along personally.
So, if the jobs are worth it (and good professorships are hard to find!) then I would not let this discourage you. Best of luck.