Apartment Hunting in Zürich is not fun

The days are counting down. We need to find a place by 1 April when the tenants of the place we're staying in return.

In the last two weeks we have looked at thirteen apartment and applied to eight of them. We know that two of the places will be deciding tomorrow. There are also at least six more places we plan to visit this week.

However, if we want to get into another temporary apartment for the month of April (and get this, it's not even for the whole month of April so we'd have to stay in a hotel for 2 nights), we need to let them know by tomorrow, and we have to pay them rent even if we find another place.

So why is it so hard to find an apartment in Zürich? I think it boils down to supply and demand. There just aren't enough apartments for all of the people who want to live here. So for every apartment there can be two or three dozen applicants. And the landlords want to find long-term renters. We had an interview with the place across from the playground and school (we were one of five or ten families that made it to that stage). The little old landlady asked me if we had furniture. Uh, no, not right now, but we will. She and her sister seemed impressed by our academic credentials, but I'm not sure if they were enough to get us the place. They were also interested in getting a reference in case for some reason we didn't pay the rent. Fortunately the Swiss-German friends that we brought along to translate offered to be our references. Makes me wonder about all those Americans coming to Zürich and running off without paying rent and giving us a bad name.

Last night we ran into one of LGG's classmate's mom on the way home from another showing. She said their family ended up using an agency, because as a family of five, they had difficulties getting an apartment. ZDG is on his way to the agency now as I type.