5 ms·
Are you sure about the rent? I rented a 2 bedroom, with windows on 3 sides, next to a park and public transport, and a large balcony with BBQ, for 2 months (so
by crdb 10y ago
Are you sure about the rent? I rented a 2 bedroom, with windows on 3 sides, next to a park and public transport, and a large balcony with BBQ, for 2 months (so short term let, higher rates), 20 minutes by tram from my office near Seefeld, for 1,500 CHF/month.
The landlady did keep my deposit (sorry, "had a professional cleaning done for the exact amount of the deposit", and sent me the detailed list as proof in German which I do not speak), bringing that to 2,250 CHF/month. A quick back of the envelope on real estate inflation since then brings me to around 2,500 CHF/month (1,700 CHF/month if you ignore the deposit trick).
That's not as cheap as a small town in Europe but it's quite cheap, I think, for a major international city and definitely when you take into account the starting salaries. Vaguely remembering, a graduate from a good university starting in strategy consulting could expect 90-110,000 CHF/year in Zurich vs 35,000 GBP (49,000 CHF) in London despite higher COL and higher taxes (same companies, which may or may not start with M or B). I have no idea about the numbers in San Francisco but I bet they are not so good either.
There's other issues with working in Switzerland if you come from Anglo-Saxon big cities, but COL isn't it if you are paid locally, unless you are dealing with an employer exploiting the unemployment rate in your home country to underpay you substantially (which is definitely the case with some French speaking companies in Geneva).
- lifeisstillgood 10y agoAnecdotally, the cleaning of rented flats in Switzerland is one step down from operating theatres. (While yes the keeping the deposit is a landlord trick the world over, the reasons given are very Swiss) A friend of mine tried to keep their deposit by cleaning it themselves ("took two days and was spotless"). Because the landlady had not got a note from a cleaning firm saying it was clean, she literally could not rent it out again. And so charged my friend for the cleaning firm to come in. They did do a better job :-)
- njs12345 10y agoWith regard to deposit scams, the system we have in the UK works pretty well - the landlord must put the deposit in a government-approved escrow scheme, which then decides any disputes over how much of the deposit should be held back (anecdotally quite fairly). If the landlord fails to protect your deposit, and does so in what might be considered bad faith, a court will often order them to pay you 3x the deposit as compensation - so they all end up actually doing it. See https://www.gov.uk/tenancy-deposit-protection/overview https://www.gov.uk/tenancy-deposit-protection/overview
- crdb 10y agoIt's very simple in Singapore too, arguably simpler. You go to the Small Claims Tribunal (you can get a date within days, anecdotally), the Registrar decides the claim in a few minutes, and it costs you a total of 5 quid to file the claim. The whole thing takes a couple of weeks at most [edit: or a day - see 1]. I think something similar exists in Switzerland, but the (German) landlady correctly guessed that as a non-German-speaking foreigner, I would not take the time and expense to attempt it. Imagine attempting to contest the necessity of "dusting the sides of books on bookshelves" to an arbitrator in a foreign language... [1] "For a tourist claim, the Tribunals may fix both the consultation/mediation and the hearing within 24 hours of filing of the claim." - https://www.statecourts.gov.sg/SmallClaims/Pages/GeneralInformation.aspx https://www.statecourts.gov.sg/SmallClaims/Pages/GeneralInfo...
- afterburner 10y agoIt's even simpler in Ontario: security/cleaning deposits are not allowed.
- udkl 10y agoMy guess is they would be factored into the rent price.