Moving to Zurich: A Little Guide to Attacking the Housing Market

I will try to keep the English version of this blog post up to date if I have new observations.

I was discussing the other day with a friend of mine how much we miss our social circles from our bachelor studies and high schools. He, coming from Germany and doing his bachelor’s in the UK, had to rebuild his network twice (almost) from scratch. I, coming from a similar experience moving from Czechia to the Netherlands and finally arriving here in Switzerland, agree that it poses many challenges. To describe it, my friend came up with a nice analogy.

People are like trees. Wherever we are, we put down roots, and when we move, we get temporarily uprooted. This means that for some time, we will not be doing as well; in particular, we will not be blooming. However, with time, we adjust again. And when the roots are well in the ground again, we can fully consume all the nutrients of the environment and bloom again! Finally, after a period of blooming, some fruits can be gathered…

Anyway, now it is May again, the lovely time of knowing your admissions into the next step in your degree and planning your move (read: being stressed and uncertain in your life once again). A couple of people I know have been admitted to ETH, and I was asked a few times to help with housing. I have just moved myself once again, and might move again soon, so I have a lot of pity with the people who have to do the same, so I decided to jot down what is on my mind.

Budget

Firstly, let’s discuss the budget you can expect (from what I’ve heard and seen, depending on the size, how many people you share with, and how far you are from the center, of course):

• Small rooms in subsidized shared flats: 500-700 CHF
• Rooms in normal shared flats: 700-1200 CHF
• Individual studios: 1300-2000 CHF

This is very broad, and you can certainly get lucky and find a much cheaper and better offer (especially if you know someone!). If so, good for you :) But this is what I would expect normally. Personally, I go low budget. I don’t know about you, but I try my best to push down the price to the absolute minimum, even sacrificing comfort for that.

Where to look?

I am sure if you googled, you would have found something as well, but here is my personal experience when I was looking for a room for myself:

WGZimmer

WG stands for ‘Wohngemeinschaft,’ a shared flat. This is the go-to website where most flats in Zurich post their listings when a room opens up in their flat. Unfortunately, it is maybe too popular, and you have to be quick to get a reply to your message as the people who post expect a lot of replies. However, there are many offers, and I am sure it is a great place to start your search, especially for low budget. I got my second place through here.

wohnen.ethz

This is the official website of the universities in Zurich. You can only register if you are a student. There are fewer offers but also fewer people responding, so you might be able to get through more easily. I got my first place through here.

FlatFox

One of the major housing advertising websites for the whole of Switzerland. It targets a broader market: also big flats and houses are offered there. Many offers, but also many respondents. Very tough to get through. I got some offers through there, but the ones from the previous two were better. But it’s certainly good to keep an eye on this website.

Subsidized Housing

There are two organizations that offer cheap (somehow subsidized?) housing for students. There is WoKo and Juwo. On their websites, there are occasional listings, but places from these shared flats are often offered through WGZimmer or wohnen.ethz. To live here, you need to meet special criteria (be enrolled as a student, be up to a certain age, and have a low enough income).

Shameless Promo

Recently, I have built a tool for employing LLMs for auto-replying to the listings on the above-mentioned websites. You can find it here. I would be very happy if it helps anyone. Let me know if you are using it and want me to improve/change something!

That’s it. Thanks for reading, and I hope this helps at least a bit!