Just a warning! If you are moving out you need to remember that your original committment remains. If the new tenant moves in early and does not pay the rent, YOU will get the Betreibung and have to pay the rent! Then you will have to claim the money off the new tenant.

Just make sure that the agency cancels your old contract, and that the new contract runs from the day you leave, not the date of the end of your old contract!

They let you out of the contact as well they should. But if you were still the contract holder for those two weeks you are obliged to show the apartment. Of course you can always say, I'm out of town those two weeks, I'm very sorry.

I've worked with this agency quite a lot. I think they are one of the better ones. They are very small though and didn't have anyone who spoke English at the time. Not sure about now if they have an English speaker.

Sometimes its a matter of not knowing what's expected.

My biggest issue was just because I thought with what everyone says about how difficult it is to find a appartment (I have fortunatly been very very lucky with the 2 I've moved into since I arrived), the process of moving out should be relatively stress free, apart from the cleaning and deposit shenanagens. In fact the agency made just the process of deciding on a new tenant the most stressful part of the move. Maybe it can work differently, but I honestly had no say on whoever moved in next. I personally pushed the intial applicant (a fellow ef'er) who more than ticked all the boxes and fwd on the details to all concerned myself, which then was followed up with several move applications a few days later because I was getting worried. On paper it seems to be straight forward, but the agency in my opinion got paid for doing not alot of work, badly.

But true, maybe I was a little naive to the process as it was my first experience.

My problem with the whole apartment searching is there is no way of knowing if you will get an apartment unless you have very good contacts at the agency or very good luck. Ultimately it's the owner of the building who makes the decision, not the agency, and all they see are names and salaries on paper.

I know we missed out on a 3 bed apartment (we have 2 children), that was given to a couple not married and no children (he is a colleague of my husband), and when I left my 2 bed apartment, there were so many families with 1-2 children that needed a 2 bed apartment, and they gave it to 2 roommates with 2 good salaries.

We got extremely lucky with my current apartment because the owner was looking specifically for a family. And there were plenty of couples (no children) that wanted the apartment, because the concierge doing all the visits told me!

You just have to keep looking, keep sending in applications. Like someone else said, you might have to make concessions, on area, size, space, even if the kitchen is equipped or not, and take a chance with all of them.

apartment hunt literally gives me huge rage. being an Asian and master student with no income, it's basically impossible. so through out my master study, i have stayed with an old couple and a dog and a cat, then in an old hospital dorm waiting to be torn down with Somalian and Ethiopian immigrants, then in a tiny room next to a tram stop with no kitchen but has a ridiculously high rent (960 chf).

and now, on the hunt again, because the landlord decided to put a small kitchen into the tiny room and almost doubled the rent.

and yes, i've tried wg's. but i think swiss people are mentally programmed to despise Chinese. I really feel sorry to say this but my experience lead me to think this way.

and i'm especially pissed at the WOKO thing, the so called student housing in zurich. they have many properties through out the city, at very cheap rates. but those housing are mostly occupied by swiss students. if one is moving out, the rest of the WOKO wg would hold an interview to pick a new tenant. as a result, all woko wg's occupied by swiss, with some portion of german or other europeans, ocassionally a few americans or canadians, i only know one woko 2er wg by two taiwanese. so here is the question to woko: choice a, you give more housing to foreign students, let the swiss students to look for other types of housing, because they are more likely to have other contacts and get along with non-student/working swiss people; choice b, you give most of your housing to swiss student, let the foreign students to deal with the insane rental market in zurich. is it a fking hard choice to make?

being turned down by a rental agency feels more or less like a job application being turned down. but being turned down by a wg is way more personal. it seriously makes you question if you are just socially unacceptable, especially if you have been rejected by too many...

seriously, this nonsense has made me cynical, antisocial, and having excessive rage. i somehow easily associate this wohnung suchen frustration with the "nice guy" phenomenon in the dating game. i know i am a decent person and have some skills, one day i probably will earn some money, enough to make a good living, and with that i will probably receive some "attention" and "respect" that i have never received when i was just a student. then i would not be happy at all, instead i would really feel disgusted, and i would not be willing to contribute any of my knowledge to benefit this sick society, nor to share a penny with some young pretty lady...

sorry, i know all this may sounds illogical or funny. i guess i would also laugh at those words years from now...

btw, if you have any good tips in dealing with rage, i think i could use some these days. still gonna have my master defense in about 2 months, and hopefully won't be homeless by then.

Hi,

I can sympathise with your situation as we have had to move twice in the last six months due to landlords requesting their flats back. I'm sure you have tried all of these websites but I have just found a flat by using home ch. I logged on early each morning and was lucky to find a flat which has just come on. I found this site to be the only really useful and up to date one. If you are stuck for accommodation we are moving out of our flat in the Grancy area (2 mins from metro and train station but very quiet and spacious) so it is available for July and August possibly longer.

message me if you are interested,
Hannah

Now it is 20+/mounth.

Quality beats Quantity. Qed.

Connections and a bit of luck are crucial to secure a good rental contract around the Lake Geneva area these days. Consider options in other cantons nearby like Fribourg, Bern, Neuchatel, and Valais if you are in Vaud.

I hear Zurich is equally as tough, wonder how it is in surrounding cantons like Schaffhausen, Aargau, Zug, Schwyz, Thurgau and St. Gallen.

I could not agree more, but adding many places to that list... When we (strike that, it is now me, but was we) were ready to look, we had a contact and she lined up 12 places for us to see in one day. We liked two, were offered both, and took the one we liked the most.

Instead of letting it frustrate you, I would get someone who knows people in the area you are looking, pay them whatever the fee may be and let them get you the right interviews.

Good luck!

Dear Liche. I feel your pain. I am white, married, Amercian, and a Post-Doc at EPFL so you would think I have it easy right? Wrong, I have two medium sized dogs from US and have to bring them here. My wife (who is an attorney with a good salary) and I have been rejected over and over and over and over... Pretty sure it is because of the dogs. FML. Somebody's earlier point that working / living in switzerland is like being a personal assistant to a spoiled celebrity is 100% right. I get the uncontrollable rage about 3x per week... not good for my mental health at all. This is the most ed up system for housing I have ever seen. Like really WTF is this. Why don't we just move to soviet russia where the party decides if you "deserve" to live in a shitty 1 br rat hole in Moscow or outer siberia? Oh yeah, the 2-weeks to get my Permit B is now turned to two months and still no permit. these assclowns, I'm about two uncontrollable eye twitches from going to back to America.