Relocation Agency Questions - Geneva/Vaud 2021

As always, this forum is a great help, and as usual, one set of questions has lead to new ones.

A quick search on the forums for "relocation agents" led to results that may or may not be helpful, but the most recent thread I found was five years old and others are more than a decade old.

We are looking for a reliable relocation agent, and will be paying out of pocket (we have a lump sum relocation budget, that covers movers, airfare, hotel, and inital start up expenses - but we will burn through it).

What we have already:

Airline tickets.

Mover (although I still have about a day or two to switch this as nothing is signed - so let's consider this done, unless their final quote sends me into tears).

Closing out our current residence in Japan.

Immigration and visa

What we need (ranked by intial importance)

English speaking - my French is not up to par for this.

Short term furnished apartment advice - I've located one but not signed - otherwise we will roll the dice with Air B&B. We had to find ourselves on previous moves.

Longer term house (not apartment) rental assistance (introductions, help arranging visits to properties, contracts, and dealing with the Regies (who sound terrifying) for Vaud and the areas in Geneva nearby the UN.

Advice for short term schooling (our daughter is nine, and we hope to have her take advantage of learning French at a public school for the first year or two if possible).

Extra bonuses: helping us to sort out a vehicle purchase. Helping us sort out transportation of our luggage from the airport to hotel/first apartment.

As we are paying ourselves out of the moving budget, I am curious as to the prices, and the reliabilty for such an agency, some names if possible, and any addiitional advice. Thank you!

I know what you mean, I was looking for the same information but nothing useful came up from it. So I went around the area and checked the google reviews.

Based on those reviews I decided for Silver Nest from Zürich, https://www.silvernest.ch/services/ and I couldn't be happier.

However, I think they only cover ZH canton and around. However, they might know / have someone to recommend for your area?

Prices depend on what exact packages of service you take, our is around 5-6000 chf for mainly organising everything about finding a flat and takeover and help with some registration things, and I'm totally delighted how painless this first part of the experience was (getting the flat).

They organised viewings for flats we found (since that was easier for us, no going back and forth about wishes, but they did send some options as well), we had planned for several days of viewing, exact time slots were arranged, so we just showed up and meet there (we came with car), check the flat, decide for which to apply for, and then wait for the answer. We got our top choice flat less than 24h from applying.

Now things left are signing the contract, organising handover and other things.

I had agent for Berlin, and they saved our sanity, so when move for CH was decided, I immediately knew I want an agent. In Berlin experience was great. This CH experience was several times better.

We did have preliminary talk, and several emails exchanged before the time for the flat hunt came. Feeling was good back then, however, experience was even better.

Hope you can find someone as good as they are

However, for all things you need think in 5-10 thousand for such service, if all bill similar amounts. I think I've concluded from something that hourly rate is around 150-200 chf.

Granted, I haven't checked anyone else nor their prices, mainly because I liked our initial contact and decided for them.

Thank you much appreciated!

I suggest you contact EF member Mrs Doolittle who works in the industry. While not based where you’re planning to move to, they might be able to recommend an agency in your area/s.

She has been incredibly helpful! And reached out to me... but thank you for this advice!

I used https://www.welcome-service.ch/ when I moved to Lausanne with my family. (My company paid for that.)

They really took care of everything.