Hi Fellas,
Together with my spouse we are looking for a nice place to live, hopefully a vibrant area with good and quick connection to Zurich HB or Greifensee (where I will be working).
Unfortunately for us a furnished flat in Zurich, close to center is quite expensive and we are looking for alternatives. Our budget is around 3000 CHF.
I looked through homegate.ch, but the options available are quite scarce when it comes to furnished places and most of them are located in the western (south-western) part of Zurich, which seems to be quite far away from the station and Greifensee.
I was thinking about Oerlikon or possibly Uster. Any other suggestions, maybe Dubendorf?
Thanks!!!

Hi, I just logged in because I wanted to post about our apartment and saw your thread. We are in Schwerzenbach, right next to the station (surprisingly quiet though), 15 minutes by train to HB and Nänikon-Greifensee is only a station away. And we are hoping to find someone who would also want the furniture. Let me know if you are interested

It seems that if I search for "Furnished dwelling" the price goes significantly higher, than if I only search for an apartment with furniture, but not tagged as such.

Is the furnished apartment just for your initial stay until the probation period is over or do you intend it as a long term solution?

If it is for the first, look more for convenient transport to your workplace and affordability than anything else (o.k. with a pregnant wife you should also compromise on some of her needs), if it is for the later drop this idea better right now. Furnished apartments are not a real thing here and you will find much better apartments for your money when your bring or buy your own furniture.

We do not really own a lot of furniture. We have been renting since I remember. Buying our own stuff would mean buying absolutely everything, which is a significant investment for an expat couple who might not stay for longer than few years.

The % of the rental market that is furnished is tiny - the percentage of that which isn't aimed at high spending corporates is even smaller.

You can choose to accept the rental market in Switzerland and adapt your search accordingly - OR well actually there isn't really an or.

Have you ever calculated how much more you are spending on renting a furnished apartment?

My impression is that a furnished rental is so much more expensive than non-furnished that a few months you save on the later is more than sufficient to buy all the stuff you need on Ikea.

What sort of furniture are you looking for? We are currently looking for someone to take on our 5.5 room apartment at Schlossmuehlestrasse, Winterthur (it's listed in the Property Offered on this forum as well as Homegate and ImmoScout). We're listing as unfurnished but we would be happy to come to an arrangement on a lot of the furniture (eg bed, sofa, dining table and chairs, wardrobe, walk-in wardrobe, rugs, bookcases, coffee tables, satellite dish, even TV etc if you would be interested? The more we leave behind, the cheaper our removal costs Take a look at the listing if you like and I'd be happy to discuss further / send more photos etc.

Thanks for the offer, but that would be too big for us

You should look for an unfurnished one, it will be significantly cheaper (you should find a 2.5 outside town for around 1500.00. There is always loads of ads for 2nd hand furniture here and also on this FB page

Thanks a lot!!!