Living in and arround Zurich Review

I am wondering if it is easier to find an flat or house in the countryside surrounding Zurich. I didn`t try yet but my guess is that it can be as difficult as finding an apartment in downtown Zurich. What might be even more tricky when you are new to the region is to know which areas are the best for living with a family.

So to prevent anyone to find himself in a spot which is suboptimal due to air traffic or other inconveniences i surfed the web looking for a website giving some more detail about good spots to live in the Zurich region.

I was quite surprised to find something very nice again on the web page of the "Tagesanzeiger" newspaper:

They do not only provide a review of Zurich itself or other spots like Zug, the sunny lakeside or Winterthur, they review the whole Zurich region.

One New RSS Feed Added: (Best Of Zurich)

I today created one more translated feed for apartments and flats in Zurich.

This covers all areas i consider nice to live in. I actually used the same search profile when i moved to zurich in summer of 2007. As before you can either subcribe to the feed directly or get an daily email.

Subscribe here to RSS feed
Subscribe to Best of Zurich by Email

I personally would suggest to subscribe to the feed as it is updated as soon as new offers are published.

Tagesanzeiger reports "Finding an apartment in Zurich is harder then ever"

The Zurich newspaper Tagesanzeiger reported on 15. Jan 2008 on the actual situation on the apartment market.

The article states that the strong economy in the Zurich region is attracting many people to move to Zurich. This triggers a boom in demand of apartments especially in the upscale districts of Kreis 6, 7 and 8.

According to the Newspaper the average price for a 4 room apartment in a new building is
2036 CHF.

Daily Fresh offers to your Inbox: Use the Zurich Apartment RSS Feeds

For those of my readers not having a RSS Feed reader installed i`am now able to offer the possibility to get an daily email with the latest offers:

The first link will send you all offers
Subscribe here for Apartment Offers in Zurich by Email
If you are only interested in Apartments in Seefeld or Enge please sign up below
Subscribe here for getting Apartment Offers in Zurich Enge by Email
Subscribe here for getting Apartment Offers in Zurich Seefeld by Email

Update 19.01.2008:
A compilation of all the best Apartment Offers in Zurich by Email
Subscribe here for getting Apartment Offers for best areas in Zurich by Email

If you find something nice be sure to read this before you go for the visiting appointment

Good to know about flats and apartments in Zurich

Even Touch Zurich isn`t in far distance to Germany i learned that there are some specialities when it comes to the usual flat equipment and other Zurich specialities

• In general Build-in kitchen everywhere, so you don`t have to buy furniture for the kitchen but also make sure not to bring any. ( I actually found one apartment once without kitchen which was a scandal for Swiss people vi sting the apartment with me)
• Shared tumbler & dryer and the washing schedule. Most flats don`t have a own washing machine or dryer but you will have to share it with your neighbors. When it comes to sharing a washing plan applies. This can be very important for your future convenience as some schedules will allow only to wash once every two weeks. Don`t forget about to ask for this during your visiting appointment. Some flats have their own tumbler /dryer but these apartments are even tougher to get
• Parquet flooring is quite common in Zurich so consider which floor the apartment is especially if neighbors on next floor have a toddler.

My Service: Apartment Offers in English

As everywhere these days most of the apartments for rent in Zurich can be found on Internet. Web pages like Homegate, Comparis or others even offer an search form in English.

But most offers describe the apartments offered in German language only.

To make them available in English to i put together a small script today which translates the description of the latest apartment offers to English.

So for example an offer like:
Stadtnahe 2-Zi-Wohnung per sofort zu vermieten (Balgriststrasse 4, 8008 Zürich/ZH)
Schöne, helle, verkehrsgünstige 2-Zimmer Wohnung mit Küche Bad/WC. Möbiliert. Die Möbel können für CHF 2000 gekauft werden.
is autoamtically converted to:
Stadtnahe 2-Zi-Wohnung per sofort zu vermieten (Balgriststrasse 4, 8008 Zürich/ZH)
Beautiful, bright, traffic-favorable 2-Zimmer dwelling with Kitchen Bad/WC. Moebiliert. Furniture can be bought for CHF 2000

quite sweet and useful isn`t it ?
Just subscribe to the follwoing links using your Favorite RSS reader. (eg. Firefox, iGoogle,myYahoo)

For the moment i created 3 RSS feeds:
Subscribe here for Apartments in Zurich Enge
Subscribe here for Apartments in Zurich Seefeld
Subscribe here for Apartments in Zurich (generic)

You can also find those feeds also in the "My Feeds: Apartments in Zurich" Box on the right hand navigation.

Please give me feedback if you like these feeds or feel like a specific area you are looking for is missing.

Map showing average rent for Zurich Apartments

Finally I found some interesting statistics on average apartment rent prices in Zurich. Something i was always looking for during my own apartement search for a long time. The stats is in german but gives a good overview of average prices for different locations within Zürich City. Based on the data for a 3 room apartment, I quickly created a map which hopefuly helps to get an idea whats the average price range per city district,

upscale segment (red) : Enge, Seefeld, Fluntern,Altstadt
above average (orange): Hirslanden,Höngg,Weinegg,Werd,Oberstrass,Witikon,Mühlebach,Hottingen
average (yellow): Wipkingen, Gewerbeschule, Escher Wyss, Alt-Wiedikon, Oerlikon, Langstrasse
below average (light green): Altstetten,Affoltern, Unterstrass, Leimbach, Wollishofen
low price (green):Hard,Kreis_12,Friesenberg,Albisrieden,Sihlfeld,Seebach

Zurich House Hunting essentials

Even if you managed to find the apartment of your choice in the Internet this does not guarantee you anything in Zurich. Often there are more then 50 applicant for the good apartments therefore you need to be aware of some house hunting essentials:
1 Be prepared:
Usually there is a formal application process for flats and apartments. I coulnd`t believe it myself but the landlord or the agency managing the apartment wants you to fill out a form.
So you better prepare yourself with as much information and documents as to proof that you are the one who deserves to move in.
Except of Name, Phone Number, Address , the form asks for references such as:

• Status of your residence permit ( B , L, C permit)
• Former landlord details
• Your Swiss employer details including your (future) Salary

If the landlord considers you as a candidate for the apartment they will actually check on the information you give in the application form, so you better make sure everything is correct.
Additionally they will ask you for handing in a Betreibungsauskunft a document you won`t have as a foreigner moving to Switzerland. The Betreibungsauskunft basically legally proofs that you so far paid all your bills on time. As you wont`t have this documents ask you bank and your current landlord to write a recommendation for you. This will help you a lot the "excuse" i don`t have this document didn`t help me at all.
Also think about thefact that you will be asked to hand in the form while viewing the apartment.
If you intend to mail or fax it the next day someoneelse will be faster then you!
2 be on time
If you go for viewing your favorite flat be sure you are there at the precise time or even a bit earlier. If the flat is in a nice or highly demanded part of the city you can already easily tell where is the viewing of an apartment just by finding a crowd of "competitors" in front of the building 10 to 5 minutes before the official time. As there is an enormous demand for nice apartments in Zurich the current tenant will unlikely let you in 2 hours later just when the stampede of 20 to 30 people left his flat.
3 the previous tenant factor
I never went to a flat viewing in Zurich where the actual landlord was there himself. Therefore the tenant occuping the apartment while you are there for viewing it becomes quite important as the most often will propose their favorite sucessor to the landlord. To be really honest I think i wouldn^t suceed to move into my flat if the previous tenant didn`t propose me to my landlord.

The right location - Zurich city districts

First question if you are not familiar with Zurich is:

Where is the right spot i want to live?

This question can`t be answered generously but i will try to give some insights on the different parts of town.

Downtown Zurich is divided into twelve districts (known as Kreis in German). These are numbered 1 to 12, each one of which may contain anywhere between 1 and 4 neighborhoods:

District 1, known as Altstadt, contains the old town, both to the right and the left of the Limmat river.
As Zurich Altstadt is most central and also very cosy, it is unlikely to find an apartment here. The area is maybee the one of most expensive within the city but has all amenities like lake, restaurants, shopping within a short walk reach.

District 2 lies along the left side of Lake Zurich, and contains the neighborhoods of Enge, Wollishofen and Leimbach.

District 3, known as Wiedikon is between the Sihl river and the Uetliberg, and contains the neighborhood of Alt-Wiedikon, Sihlfeld and Friesenberg.

District 4, known as Aussersihl is between the Sihl river and the train tracks leaving Zürich Main Station.

District 5, known as Industriequartier (Industrial area), is between the Limmat river and the train tracks leaving Zürich Main Station, it contains the former industrial area of Zürich.

District 6 is on the edge of the Zürichberg, a hill overlooking the eastern part of the city. District 6 contains the neighborhoods of Oberstrass and Unterstrass.

District 7 is on the edge of the Adlisberg as well as the Zürichberg, on the eastern side of the city. District 7 contains the neighborhoods of Hottingen and Hirslanden. District 8, known as Riesbach, on the eastern side of Lake Zurich.

District 9 is between the Limmat on the north and the Uetliberg on the south. District 9 contains the neighborhood of Altstetten and Albisrieden.

District 10 is to the right of the Limmat and to the south of the Hönggerberg and the Käferberg. District 10 contains the neighborhoods of Höngg and Wipkingen.

District 11 is in the area north of the Hönggerberg and Käferberg and between the Glatt valley and the Katzensee (Katzen Lake). It contains the neighborhoods of Affoltern, Oerlikon and Seebach.

Handpicked Apartments in Zurich

I start this Blog as finding a nice apartment in Zurich is very difficult, i myself moved here some while ago and i must admit that downtwon Switzerland is for sure a very nice city to life in.

The only downside is to find a nice place apartement once you move here.