Hi everyone!
Well, here's my little story.
In a few weeks time I start working in Zurich and I'm now considering where to look for a place to live. For a couple of reasons, I would like to be somewhere between Zurich and Lausanne (perhaps closer to Zurich to reduce the time I'll spend every day in the train).
So I'm thinking of either going to Biel, Solothurn or Olten (or perhaps Aarau). Not taking into account the distance from Zurich, where would it be better according to your opinion? I mainly have two aspects in my mind: (1) Rents / taxation and (2) How nice the place is to live.
First of all, is there any big difference in the rent prices for these cities?
And second, which city is nicer? I also guess that in Solothurn and Olten it would be easier to find an apartment within max 10min from the train station (either on foot or by bike).
Thanks in advance!
Olten is a rather boring city, but it is a very good train connection point for trains to Zurich, Basel, Lucerne and Basel. So if you are just there to sleep and like to travel, it's probably a good choice, since rents are reasonable, to.
Solothurn is my favourite out of the three, but a fair distance to Zurich if you are commuting. The old city is really pretty and quaint.
I would think Biel is a bit far to commute, check the train schedule to get an idea, one advantage is that there is a lot of French spoken.
A nice place to live means different things to different people, you may want to elaborate on that. Have a look at homegate or comparis websites to compare rents in the different cities. I don't think they are that different.
Biel is a lovely city. My vote would go with Biel. It is 1 hr 10 from Lausanne.
But don't really have experience of the other two save a couple of visits to each.
I would vote for Biel too but it is a longer commute to Zurich. I don't think it would be too difficult to find a place near the station and the rents there are pretty reasonable.
My second choice would be Solothurn but then I've never actually really visited Olten so I can't really say anything about it as a place to live.
Biel is the most friendly & they will happily speak in French or English, which is more than can be said of the others.
Olten has the best Train Connection to Zürich for sure, and
the rents are inexpensive. It might be a bit boring though.
Solothurn is a cute Little town but boring.
Biel has a Little bit more culture and is on a lake, but
it is over 1 hour to Zürich.
Olten is Close to Bern, Basel, Luzern, and Zürich if
you want to go out and visit a City.
if you need to be in Zurich 5 days per week, I would find a place in Zurich and travel to Lausanne when needed. It will save you a lot of time and you will pay less tax compared to the three others.
If you claim to drive a car every day to work from lausanne to Zurich you will be able to deduct over 75,000 CHF in expenses so almost certainly pay less tax than living in ZH
Guys thank you a lot, all of you for your posts!
Well, the truth is that I would most probably choose Biel, since it seems to be the most interesting and nice to live (and also bigger).
Btw @sisscanmom, by "nice" I -think that I- actually mean cute, beautiful and with nice landscape! Maybe a bit lame description, but I am not so interested in having a lot of entertainment options because almost all the weekends I will be off.
But I also think it is a bit far for everyday commuting to Zurich. My second choice would then be Solothurn, since I have also heard good words about it, but then it is still an hour away from Zurich.
So I guess I'll end up in Olten. I should however try to calculate whether the rent prices there would compensate for the tax increase (in comparison to Zurich I mean).
If you are looking at Olten, you could also look at some of the places around it. Zofingen for instance has a cute old city. I would think living there would be nicer than Olten.