Apartment Hunting

This week we have been busy apartment hunting.  Darren's work provides us with a relocation agent and after our experience this week, I am so thankful they do.  We are looking for places close to his office in Enge (another district/neighborhood in Zurich), but Enge, of course, is the most expensive and most hip and cool district.  Where else would a company like his be located?  So we are looking in that district and places right around it, but also some "suburbs" south of his office along Zürichsee (Lake Zurich).  When I say suburbs, I mean they are only 10 minutes away by train, but they are cute little villages.

Seeing as how Zurich is the tenth most expensive city in the world (according to Bloomberg), prices are very high here.  You might think, well then it's like New York, right?  New York only falls at #29 on that list.  From what we looked at this week, the average price for a 750 sq. ft. older apartment in Zurich is $2600.

But the price isn't the most difficult part about housing here.  It's being able to just get into a place.  We went to a public viewing of an apartment in Enge and even though we arrived 15 minutes early, there were already five other people there.  Within five minutes of the start of the viewing, 20 people had already arrived.  One apartment I saw listed online had 900 page views and was rented within two days of being listed.  It isn't just enough to be the first to apply or have a good salary to pay for the apartment.  Our relocation agent has to convince the property management why we would be the best candidates to live in their apartment.  We have to make ourselves attractive renters, whereas property managers do not have to make any effort to get people into their apartments.

So after a week of looking, we have applied for two apartments in Enge, but we have no idea if we are actually going to get them.  We have also looked at an apartment a fellow employee will be vacating, but not until January, so we would have to find another temporary place if we went with that.  But that's why I said I'm thankful we have a relocation agent to get us through all of this.  I'm sure we'll get something soon.

On Sunday, we will be heading up to Stuttgart, Germany for a quick trip to get our visas.  We won't have time to see much, but I'll snap some pictures and report back.