Hello - I have never been on a site like this before and having a few problmes trying to find out about life in Switzerland! I am currently a housewife with 2 small girls (one is 3 and one is nearly 1). What I would like to know is nice area's to live just out of Zurich. It also appears that everyone lives in apartments, are there many houses to rent as hoping for visitors from England to be able to stay!!! I would idealy like to live in the subburbs of Zurich, so not too busy but also not too quiet. With easy access to many places for children and meeting others, eating out, activities for the children and shopping for food and extra's. Thanks

Hi and welcome.

Houses are available but most likely incredibly expensive. A two bedroom apartment can range from 1500 - 2000 within 5 KMs of Zurich centre. You could consider going out a bit further but travel time into the city will be longer. Being an Australian long distance travel did not faze me. I lived in Altstetten, and areas near this was family friendly with walks to the forest possible, and close to public transport. It took about 10 minutes into the city by bus or tram.

An trains, busses, trams, s-bahn and so on runs frequently. though I live quite centrally in town i find it no problem at all visiting friends outside. Nice comunities are Uster, w a good englishspeaking comunity (i heard), Pfäffikon (Zürich), with a lake, Utikon, with sun and great walking areas... and so on.

Yes further out places like Dietikon might be good if seeking a house.

Thanks for this, I shall start looking into the areas. I don't suppose you know any estate agents names that would deal with rented housing in and around these areas!!

i have never rented here... but the local morning paper is nzz.ch, or 20minuten.ch (for the free daily paper) for buying homegate.ch is good. and you're welcome

www.homegate.ch will give you a good idea of the rental market. I have to say that we looked at mainly flats and some of them were 3/4 bedrooms and a few that were ground floor had good size gardens. I've seen a few that are top floor with roof gardens, granted maybe not the safest with young children! My basic point is that it may be worth looking at a few flats as many are really quite large particularly as others have said if you move just outwith the city.

Not really, but you can surf the web to see whats around.

Try here for starters

http://www.homegate.ch/homegate/inde...gency=&lang=en

They are in english too!