Living in Zurich: Woko and other things

[Aniket]

Hi Everyone,

Well my financial and administrative doubts seem to be sorted out..
But if I thought getting a education loan was going to be the worst of
my problems, I was sorely and sadly mistaken :) .. Apparently finding
a place to live in Zurich is *the* major mountain that a student has
to climb. I have looked at woko.ch, but before I really dig into all
the housing websites, I thought I'd clear up some doubts so that I
don't waste time later... So for all those who are living in Zurich
right now, I would really, really appreciate if you could shed some
light on the following points --

** Woko.ch does not usually allow ppl to sublet rooms or flats via e-
mail, is that correct? I mean for long term housing, do you have to
personally go to their office? That's the impression I got from
reading their website.. I mailed them, and got a rather cryptic reply
to the effect: "... We have some rooms which we let directly, these
are at Tannenrauchstrasse, Elsastrasse and Altstetterstrasse. If you
are interested in one of these rooms, please contact us one month in
advance, which means before the entrance (only limited number of
offers). For all other rooms you have to come personally to our office
at Leonhardstrasse 15 two months in advance to get our offers...". So
my queries are --

1) Is long term housing available through woko.ch? I mean rooms for 1
year or even more? Has anyone acquired room using their service? And
if such long term housing can be acquired only by personally going to
their office, what did you guys do in the first month of your arrival
in Zurich?
2) Which brings me to my 2nd ques -- Is any form of housing available
via e-mail? Rooms for at least 1 month, so that you have somewhere to
go when you land in Zurich? Does woko.ch have such housing? And if
there is, how is the payment? Online credit card payment?


** For other services except woko, like wgzimmer, marketplatz, what is
the situation w.r.t booking a room / flat without coming there
personally? Do they allow it, or is it like woko?

** The rents are around CHF 500.. Is that normal? Is anyone living for
very less like around CHF 300? Particularly, I am prepared to commute
for 1 hour either way... So can I find relatively cheap accomodation
outside Zurich? I hear the train service is good...

** For everyone living in Zurich currently, can you pl. tell me how
you proceeded to obtain your current place of residence? Which
services did you use? How did you go about it before arriving there?
How soon were you able to acquire permanent residences?

** Residence Permit -- We have to register at the nearest office
within 15 days... So in that case, finding long term housing quickly
becomes even more critical.. What did you guys do about that?

** For people who are in same situation as me, i.e. 2009 admits, are
there any tips you can give me? If there are 4-5 ppl from the Indian
Subcontinent, we can take a 1.5 room flat or something.. I have seen
such flats on wgzimmer.. The costs are around CHF 900... Even with 4
ppl it comes out to be a reasonable rate.. So everyone, pl. lets
discuss these things together.. We'll have to decide soon....

** Lastly ---- Does anyone have place for one person?? :)

Any other advice / suggestion would be most welcome. I'm not sure if
I'm starting to look for rooms too early or too late...

Thanks!

Aniket Nagle

[Prateek Agarwal]

let me be short in my reply:

* Woko houses can be applied for in advance by internet, they prefer newcomers. There is ETH housing link for that
        - They allocate according to availability, so I *think* you can not say which building or which room
        - Woko houses are pretty decent, very well furnished and damn cheap

* Almost all the houses outside can't be rented without giving the person a visit

* Youth hostels are not that cheap

So in total

- Try to have an accommodation available for you when you land in Zurich search for more options when you come here.
- Almost no one gets residence for long term basis
- Get used to the above fact as soon as possible (this is really hard even after months of coming here :) )

[A Square]

** The rents are around CHF 500.. Is that normal? Is anyone living for
very less like around CHF 300? Particularly, I am prepared to commute
for 1 hour either way... So can I find relatively cheap accomodation
outside Zurich? I hear the train service is good...

# Hehe. Boy u'll be the luckiest man in Zurich if u could find
yourself a place to live for as low as 300 francs.
And living outside Zurich doesn't solve the problem either: For one,
finding a place to live their is not easy too. Secondly, u'll have to
spend lots of money per month on transportation. And thirdly, Zurich
is not small. It's quite big actually. So living outside Zurich would
mean that u spend atleast 1 hour (by train) for one sided commute.

** For everyone living in Zurich currently, can you pl. tell me how
you proceeded to obtain your current place of residence? Which
services did you use? How did you go about it before arriving there?
How soon were you able to acquire permanent residences?

# I got a room in one of the woko house just by chance. I had earlier
received a mail saying that there wasn't any vacancy, but after 2
weeks someone dropped out and I was first in the waiting list. And for
some reasons my contract here got extended from 8 months to almost
16.

Otherwise most of the other people had to permanent place to stay when
they arrived here. Some of them stayed with others in the student
house, using their address to apply for a RP (it's allowed!). Some of
them even rented the youth-hostel nearby for a few days. It all proves
out to be quite expensive, and troublesome, but then you've to do it
in case you cannot find yourself a place to stay before arriving here.
Then there were others who found places, but only for 1-2 mnths, and
they had to find a new place everytime.

** Residence Permit -- We have to register at the nearest office
within 15 days... So in that case, finding long term housing quickly
becomes even more critical.. What did you guys do about that?

# Already answered above. Don't worry about RP. Usually they give u
more time to apply.

** For people who are in same situation as me, i.e. 2009 admits, are
there any tips you can give me? If there are 4-5 ppl from the Indian
Subcontinent, we can take a 1.5 room flat or something.. I have seen
such flats on wgzimmer.. The costs are around CHF 900... Even with 4
ppl it comes out to be a reasonable rate.. So everyone, pl. lets
discuss these things together.. We'll have to decide soon....

# 4 people in a 1.5 room flat for 900 francs ..well .. can't be sure
if it's fraudulent or not .. and even if it's not, no one will give u
a flat online ..most people take at least one round of face-to-face
interview (if not more!) before handing their flat to you.

On May 6, 11:08 am, Prateek Agarwal <agarwal.prat...@gmail.com> wrote:
> let me be short in my reply:
>
> * Woko houses can be applied for in advance by internet, they prefer
> newcomers. There is ETH housing link for that
>         - They allocate according to availability, so I *think* you can not
> say which building or which room
>         - Woko houses are pretty decent, very well furnished and damn cheap
>
> * Almost all the houses outside can't be rented without giving the person a
> visit
>
> * Youth hostels are not that cheap
>
> So in total
>
> - Try to have an accommodation available for you when you land in Zurich
> search for more options when you come here.
> - Almost no one gets residence for long term basis
> - Get used to the above fact as soon as possible (this is really hard even
> after months of coming here :) )
>

[A Square]

their ---- > there in the first answer .. :D

[Aniket]

OK I'm going to risk being given the tag of the slowest person on this
group, but I have some more questions --

* Regarding things other than woko, i guess it depends on the
particular person who is advertising. So I'll just concentrate on
woko.... In a reply to my query, they asked me to "... please contact
us one month in advance... " ... My question for everyone is --

1) Has anyone got confirmed rooms through woko around this time,
i.e. May? Or did you all have to wait till end of July or something?
2) They have also written that ".... You are only allowed to rent a
room by woko if you are immatriculated in Zurich." Now this means when
I get the reply to the registration form that I had sent them, right?
So no point in bothering woko ppl until I get that letter?
3) Prateek, you mentioned that woko houses are pretty cheap.. So
there must be a lot of rush for them... Is there something I have to
do right now (in case of woko only) like register or something or is
it just waiting for ppl to advertise for rooms?

Also, is there anyone out there who is living in a flat / apartment?

Thanks!

Aniket

[divay bansal]

Hey dude why do you think so much. Just do the things instead. We all have came here and living here without so many queries. Check the eth website, previous post on this group and look for housing. Drop an email to woko people instead of us who know the procedure better then us.

 
Regards

Divay Bansal

[Prateek Agarwal]

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 1:06 PM, Aniket <anike...@gmail.com> wrote:

OK I'm going to risk being given the tag of the slowest person on this
group, but I have some more questions --

No probs we are here to speed you up :P ;)

* Regarding things other than woko, i guess it depends on the
particular person who is advertising. So I'll just concentrate on
woko.... In a reply to my query, they asked me to "... please contact
us one month in advance... " ... My question for everyone is --

  1) Has anyone got confirmed rooms through woko around this time,
i.e. May? Or did you all have to wait till end of July or something?

We had to wait some time after applying for housing through ETH website. Few people got confirmation pretty late. Good news is that they prefer non EU citizens first, then EU non-Swiss and then Swiss.

  2) They have also written that ".... You are only allowed to rent a
room by woko if you are immatriculated in Zurich." Now this means when
I get the reply to the registration form that I had sent them, right?
So no point in bothering woko ppl until I get that letter?

Bingo! bang on target :D

  3) Prateek, you mentioned that woko houses are pretty cheap.. So
there must be a lot of rush for them... Is there something I have to
do right now (in case of woko only) like register or something or is
it just waiting for ppl to advertise for rooms?

Yes, be fast. ETH website provides you with a web form to apply for housing but do not expect any acknowledgment for a *LOT*  of time. I don't have the link with me right now and I suppose the link comes up on the website only when they start accepting applications for housing [This means you have to keep on searching]

[ETH International Student Support]

Hi guys

I think I have to clarify some things here :-)
It seems to me that you, Aniket, mix up two different things. There's
"Woko" on the one hand, and there's the "ETH/University Housing
Office" (www.wohnen.ethz.ch) on the other hand. These are different
things, and I guess the easiest way to get a room is to fill in the
online application form of the Housing Office (not Woko). The link was
sent to you together with your admission letter (blue sheet of paper
with lots of links). Have you done this already? If not, you should,
as soon as possible (deadline is June 30th) Maybe you have heard that
they cannot proved rooms for everybody. This is true, but the
situation has been improved now since a new student hostel will open
in September 2009. This means that we can offer rooms to much more
students than in previous years. Students from outside of Europe have
first priority, so your chances are quite good.

Regards, Annina





On 6 Mai, 13:31, Prateek Agarwal <agarwal.prat...@gmail.com> wrote:

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