This apartment is in the centre of Kusnacht and only a couple of minutes walk from the train station, grocery shops and lakeside parks.
Just in case this is of any use to someone moving to Zurich soon, there's a lovely furnished apartment available from 1 April - 30 June https://en.comparis.ch/immobilien/ma.../show/22584130
Hi everyone
Thought I'd come back here to report on how was my search like.
- We spent a full working week in Zurich, from Sunday to Friday, and pre-scheduled via phone about 10 visits. Important: I never used an agent or anything like that, and I don't speak German so my contact was all in English.
- We would apply on the same day of the visit, at night (on one same day we sent 4 different applications).
- The speed in which they will process your application will depend on many factors, but in our case, it took around 5-7 days. We left Zurich with 2 NOs and 5 other applications still being processed.
- The next week we were surprised by 3 positive answers.
It was even difficult to juggle them because we were not sure if we would be accepted for more than 1, so we happily accepted the first. In the middle of the process, we got accepted for our first option so we had to back out of one contract to accept the other one.
Note 1: One thing that was completely new to me: the application is never done on-site. You will visit the flat and they will give you an application form at the end of the visit with an email address you can send it to, or a link to a digital application form.
Note 2: Most of the flats we visited were still occupied and it was the current tenant who was showing us around.
Conclusion: You will need to visit the flat in order to even have the application form. If you have a short amount of time to score a place, plan ahead for as many visits as possible and apply for as many as you can. The more you apply the better chances of getting a positive answer (duh, obviously!).
The 3 positive responses we got were from 3 different house administrators (the big names) and they had no issues with the fact that we didn't have a residency permit and debt registry yet. I made sure to always highlight this fact in the application forms (there is always a "remarks" field) - in German (Google Translate).
Plus, I have 2 dogs, and not small ones
I would say our trip to Zurich was a huge success!!!
On March 1st we'll be moving to our first apartment in Winterthur!
Thank you all for your inputs and help!