After reviewing hundreds of neubau flats, I noticed an interesting pricing structure. You pay to be higher up, but you also pay for more sunshine.
It even works similarly with rentals. People pay more money to have a sunnier location and sunshine seems to be very important for the Swiss. How else will you grow your herb garden?
But at times it seems a bit ridiculous.
Between erstbezug, Comparis, and a few housing trade shows, at the beginning of the year I was swimming in neubau options. We had choices anywhere from 2 room to 6.5 room flats with terraces or gardens, but location and cost made it difficult to weigh the options.
It seemed like almost anything within the city limits of Zürich was priced at one million plus, no matter how far away from public transportation it was. And most of the loftier 5.5-6.5 flats were in towns 45-60 minutes to Zürich by bus and train, which was further than we were willing to move.
Erstbezug helped me find a few building sites near Zürich with flats that actually fell in an affordable range. From the project pages I was able to go through each of the flats at a building site and look for something in our size and price range.
The race came down to two flats/building sites, where I mulled over the possibilities over and over.
Flat A:
I found the Flat A project almost at the beginning of my housing search at the end of 2011. The flats were still pretty expensive for the space you get, but the location had so many good things going for it and the flats looked amazing.
Image via Homegate.ch
The Good:
The Bad:
Flat B:
I found the Flat B project a couple months into my search. It was a relatively new project and most all of the flats were free. If we chose to go with a 3.5 room flat with 20sq m (215sq ft) less than flat A, we could stand to save 250,000CHF on the price of the home.
Or if we paid the same as Flat A, we could upgrade to a 5.5 room flat with 20sq m more than Flat A. Decisions, decisions.
Image via Homegate.ch
I couldn’t stop imagining a bedroom, walk in closet room, guest room and office…
The Good:
The Bad:
During the whole process of looking for flats and trying to convince Kay that buying was a good idea, we missed out on a cheaper option in the building of Flat A. There was another 3.5 room flat the same size, but with a smaller (but still sizable!) 25 sq m (269sq ft) balcony and a small loggia that was selling for about 100k less than Flat A. I would have chosen it to save money, but shortly after we visited the showroom, the flat was already reserved.
The problem with building A was that we were a bit late in discovering it. Half the apartments had been purchased already and I could tell that there were larger 4.5 and 5.5 room flats that had gone for less than the price of Flat A. Hell, there were other 3.5 room flats that had gone for 250,000 less!
I felt like we were slightly too late with Flat A and that if we really wanted to capitalize on being an early bird, we could do that with Building B where all the flats were ripe for picking at good prices. I was also beginning to worry that we would overstretch our budget with Flat A and that it would be better to choose a much cheaper 3.5 flat in building B. Our mortgage would be sooo much cheaper with 250k less in debt!
Can you tell which flat which chose?
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Despite all the scary figures I mentioned earlier, I was confident that with our savings we would be able to buy some kind of modest flat and profit on this extremely low interest.
I spent hours on Comparis looking at houses and flats. We couldn’t afford anything besides a shoebox in downtown Zürich, but there were many flats outside the city and even entire houses that were possibly in our budget.
Having been raised in Switzerland, Kay had the notion that you don’t buy property unless you are 40 or have kids. (That’s not us.) It took some time to convince him that we don’t have to fit into the stereotype for buying to be an advantageous financial choice.
The big question was size and location. Sure, we could sort of afford a 6.5 room apartment (= 5 bedroom flat) or even a 7 room house complete with garage, basement, backyard and everything, but that would mean sacrificing on location.
We do like living in Zürich and realistically, in the next 20 years we will probably change our jobs a few times. With that in mind, we are not quite in a position to commit to a small town an hour and a half away from Zürich city by train/bus.
Who in their twenties wants to worry about catching the last bus back to the middle of nowhere at the end of the night? Not us.
We have to be close enough to Zürich that if one of us would have to get a job outside, we would not have an impossible commute. Buying a car to save on commute time would also kind of negate the “saving” aspect of buying a house.
So we started limiting the search to flats in the vicinity of Zürich city, under 20 minutes to the main station by train. I mean, we just don’t need a house right now. As much as I think it would be cool to have 5 bedrooms and build a photography studio, we just don’t need that much space right now.
I saw a few older flats that could possibly be contenders, but when Kay and I visited a 3 bedroom 80 sq m flat (861 sq ft) it felt cramped and although it was technically IN Zürich, it was kind of a crap neighborhood with nothing going on around it. It was depressing.
Kay was really unimpressed with the old interior and the smell of smoke and other places we saw had 30 year old windows or unfinished interiors that would all require possibly hundreds of thousands in repairs. Some had winter gardens (like an enclosed glass balcony) but no real balcony, aka no grilling. It was always something. And none of the locations were really spot on.
Some older flats also come with “Baurecht“, which basically means somebody owns the land your flat or house is on. They have a 20-100 year contract with people to rent this land from them to build on, and you might end up paying like 400-1000CHF a month just for renting your land. It’s a pretty unattractive detail and makes it hard to sell your house if you do get suckered into a deal like that. You’ll never pay 300CHF a month in mortgage costs if you’ve always got those bloody building rights to deal with.
With all this information, we just weren’t sure buying a fixer-upper or an older flat sounded like a good idea right now.
Up next, we discover Neubau!
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I mentioned how 70% of the population in Switzerland rents, but did you know that it is estimated that only .06% of the flats in Zürich are vacant? That’s not a typo. 99.94% of the flats here are taken.
TMLSS: It’s hard to secure a flat, especially for a good price.
This is a short (long?) guide about how to rent here based on our experience.
A. Go to the local registry office and request a “Betreibungsauszug” if you have been in the country 6 months or longer. This is basically a piece of paper that says you don’t owe anyone any debts and without it, you are often very unlikely to get a flat. For newcomers who do not yet have a debt free history within the country, this can be especially crippling because without this paper… you may appear untrustworthy to a landlord.
B. Have a copy of your residence permit/work permit and passport or your ID if you are Swiss. Please note, residents with temporary permits (L) are also very unlikely to be accepted for a flat, but for some people this is their only option.
C. Copies of the last 3 months pay slips from work or a letter from HR stating your salary. In general, you are not allowed to rent a flat that is more than 33% of your salary.
D. If you have a letter from your HR or previous landlord, make sure you have copies ready. Also prepare contact details (phone numbers) for any references you wish to include on your application.
E. Start preparing a cover letter for your applications which you can modify for different flats. Write about yourself, why you want the flat and why you will be an excellent tenant choice.
F. It is not required, but I recommend including a photo of yourself as well.
Make a budget around 1/4 to 1/3 of your monthly salary, but not more. Landlords often will not rent to you if you earn “too much” or “too little”. Start looking for flats on sites like www.homegate.ch, www.comparis.ch, www.immostreet.ch and the local newspaper. Tell everyone you know that you are looking for a flat and ask if they know anyone that knows anyone that knows anyone. Friend connections are still the best way to get the early scoop on a cheap flat up for grabs, but most of us have to do the legwork on sites like homegate and hope it works out.
Almost no landlords here rent flats without meeting tenants first or knowing they have viewed the apartment in person. Either make an appointment with the current tenant, landlord, or show up for pre-scheduled flat viewings listed online.
During the visit it is important to ask all your questions about the flat. Here are some of our favourites:
Now this step is crucial, so pay attention.
If you show up to a flat viewing, there may be 200 other people there. That’s truly happened to me before. 200. People.
It is important to show up to viewings exactly when they start and to post your application or turn it in immediately. This is why it is so important to prepare your paperwork ahead of time. If you like the flat and they have applications available there, fill it out and turn everything in together as soon as possible. Same day if possible. Your renting livelihood depends on it.
Renting applications generally ask for all applicants’ citizenship, age, gender, personal address, work address, phone number, reference numbers, how much you earn, if you have children or not, if you have pets, and even if you play an instrument.
If you hide the fact that you have a dog and you play the piano, the landlord will not be very happy later on and they may ask you to move out because you are violating their terms of agreement. Also, be prepared to have all your references checked up on. They are very keen to have a nice tenant with such a large pool to choose from.
Most landlords have already made up in their mind what kind of tenant they want. They may be looking for a single male, single female, a couple without children, or a family, but you can be sure they will not tell you what kind of person they are looking for. That would be too easy!
Applying before anyone else gives you a small leg up because they often give flats on a first-come-first-serve basis if you meet their qualifications.
Points may be taken off if you are an unmarried couple because the landlord is wary about a possible breakup, families with small (noisy) children, roommate situations because again the landlord is wary of people moving out, and anyone with a pet or loud musical instrument is going to have difficulty finding a landlord that accepts them.
Kay looked for flats for six months after he finished university before he found one he liked that agreed to rent to him. When we moved in together, we searched together for 7 months before finding a flat that would accept us.
We went through a lot of rejections. We weren’t sure if people were unhappy that we weren’t married or didn’t have kids or that we earned too much or too little. There’s never any feedback on why you are not accepted.
Repeat Steps 1-5 until you can make it past Step 6.
Hallelujah! You thought this day would never come.
Usually when a landlord agrees to rent, you will meet with them or their agency to sign a contract after you agree on a move in date and give your deposit into a 3rd party bank account that neither of you have access to.
Deposits are usually 1-3X your monthly rent. If you are renting a modest 2500CHF one bedroom flat in Seefeld, your deposit just might be 7500CHF. (That’s over $8000 USD at this time.)
Rent is also due upfront, not at the end of the month… so when you move in you will usually be required to give either 3 or 4X your monthly rent unless you can negotiate a 1 month deposit. For a 2500CHF flat, this would be a whopping 10,000CHF!
But don’t worry… employers are often friendly and will loan you money to pay for your deposit if you are just moving here for the first time. And fret not, even people with dogs and pianos or unemployed fellows can find a flat. You just need to persevere. 🙂
I’ll get into taking over and leaving a flat in another post. 😉
How complicated is the rental process in your area?
*All photos are personal unless noted*
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Allow me to explain why I spent the first four years of my time in Switzerland under the belief that I would never buy a home here.
First, let’s take a look at a few of the buying prospects:
1) 4 Bedroom flat, 138m2 / 1500 sq ft, CHF 2,490,000
2) 2 Bedroom flat, 85m2 / 914 sq ft, CHF 1,050,000
3) 1 Bedroom loft flat, 81m2 / 870 sq ft, CHF 970,000
4) 3 bedroom house, 145m2 / 1560 sq ft, CHF 2,250,000
5) 5.5 bedroom house, 200m2 / 2150 sq ft, CHF 5,600,000
Now maybe the pretty pictures above were distracting, or maybe you think we’ve got crazy inflation with CHF*, but I’m hoping you noticed that these digs are all crazy expensive.
*At the time of writing this, $1 = .93 CHF, so all those prices are even more expensive in dollars.
A one bedroom flat can easily cost one million dollars and you can forget about buying a normal house. As I write this, there are only 10 single family houses listed for sale in the city of Zürich. Half of them are 2.5-5 million francs.
If you are lucky enough to find a house or flat available, chances are that you cannot afford it. Why not?
One scary word: Deposit.
The general rule in Switzerland is that you need a 20% deposit on a house in order to get a mortgage. How does that work on on that 1 bedroom flat above? 
Holy shite. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have 200k in my pocket, let alone 500k for flat #1 up there or 1.12 million for house #5.
When I figured out HOW much buying in Zürich would cost a couple years ago, I simply wrote it off in “the impossible” list and didn’t think anymore about buying for a long time. I had forgotten then that where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Although over 70% of the population here rents, someone has to be buying houses somehow and it cannot be the billionaires alone, can it?