we are currently looking for a new apartment to be closer to the mountains. our target area is the rüschlikon–thalwil–wädenswil area which is quite conveniently located: quite a bit closer to our favourite walking grounds than adliswil.

two weeks ago we did find a rather nice looking place, a group of new apartment buildings “coming online” over the course of the next year. i went and had a look at one of the show apartments: quite nicely done, good materials, the one i was interested in seemed to be in a reasonably quiet position — rent was CHF 2′300 (yep, but that’s switzerland, zurich area). i applied for a contract…we apparently checked out OK and the real estate agent did send us the contract for the apartment we were interested in. yes!

…well, not really. i had a chance to look at the contract last night when i came back from the spirituality weekend at the community casteller ring: at first glance it looked OK — except for one little clause:

…the contract comprises a rent reserve of 25%…

bummer! that essentially means that, yes, we have this contract for an apartment, and, yes, the rent is CHF 2′300 — however, if the landlord feels so inclined he can raise the rent by 25% at the next opportunity, bringing the rent up to a wooping CHF 2′875! we’d be signing a contract that could basically change under our feet at any moment — hmm, don’t think so…interesting concept of a contract, though. oh, and a colleague suggested that we could have proposed a reserve from our side: we’d reserve the right to not pay the rent every four month or so…lol

back to looking for an apartment now.