The order of steps that saves the most time
- Finish your dossier today. ID, salary certificate, debt extract (Betreibungsauszug) and references, ready to send. A flat you like without a ready dossier costs you a day.
- Set two limits, then widen the map. Fix your top rent and your longest commute. Search every town inside those limits, not one city.
- Turn on alerts. Answer new adverts on the day they appear and ask for the next viewing date in the same message.
- Apply on the day of the viewing. Bring the dossier with you or send the link from your phone before you leave the building.
- Run several applications in parallel. Withdraw the others politely once you have signed.
- Keep a bridge ready: a furnished flat on a limited lease, a sublet or a room in a shared flat (wgzimmer.ch is the usual board for shared flats).
Where supply is larger
| Place | Different homes for rent | Median asking rent |
|---|---|---|
| Zurich (city) | 3,382 | CHF 2,550 |
| Basel | 1,184 | CHF 1,755 |
| Bern | 693 | CHF 1,924 |
| Lausanne | 688 | CHF 1,940 |
| Geneva | 654 | CHF 3,050 |
| St. Gallen | 509 | CHF 1,512 |
| Lugano | 499 | CHF 1,830 |
Source: aptari feed, 9 November 2026. Asking rent is the rent shown in the listing. These are not official statistics.
By canton the same feed shows Zurich with 6,603 homes, Bern 4,006, Ticino 3,067, Vaud 2,937, Aargau 2,159 and St. Gallen 1,817. The canton of Zurich has almost twice as many homes as the city alone, so the towns around a city are where a fast search gains the most.
What is affordable
Of 33,685 homes with a rent, 10,253 (30%) ask up to CHF 1,500 and 19,730 (59%) ask up to CHF 2,000 (aptari feed, 9 November 2026). The median for Switzerland is CHF 1,860.
Doing this on aptari
aptari puts the rental adverts of Homegate, ImmoScout24, Flatfox and about 800 housing cooperative websites into one feed, free and without a login. Save your search and aptari alerts you to new listings (Pro and Ultra, and in the 14-day free trial). Build the Tenant Passport once: aptari reads each document at upload and shows what is missing. Wherever the Apply with Aptari button shows, it writes your message in the listing's language, adds a private link to your dossier and copies it. You paste it on the portal and press send.