International Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Intro, Geneva
Hi ladies. DH, DD ( currently 16 months), and I are considering an expat move to Geneva in April. It is for my career so DH would likely stay home with DD. I have a few questions-- what will a decent sized 3 bedroom apartment cost in Geneva? We don't have our housing allowance yet but should receive in a few weeks. -do any of you have husbands who stay home abroad? Any tips for DH?- any other tips this early in the process?I appreciate your tips.
Re: Intro, Geneva
We used to live in Zurich but just moved back to the US two weeks ago.
Your probably looking at close to 4,000 to 5,000 Swiss Francs for a 3 bedroom depending on what part of the city it is. In Zurich we were paying 1,300 CHF and we had a one bedroom and a small apartment. Which was 27 minutes by tram to city center. A friend's two bedroom 15 minutes from center was 2,400.
You can look on here to get an idea. http://www.immoscout24.ch and you can navigate the site in English. Typically when they say rooms they mean the number of rooms the apartment has and not the number of bedrooms.
Besides that is your company going to help you find the apartment through an agent or is it up to you? Also make sure they are the ones to pay if you ever need to break the contract early. It's a very odd system to get out of in my opinion.
2012 Reading Challenge
Now Nesting from Chicago, IL My nail blog:
Hello, DH and I live in Neuch?tel, Switzerland but used to live in Geneva.
DH and I lived in a 1 bedroom apartment, 20 minutes from the center of Geneva (Vernier, near the airport), we paid 1,600chf (it included a covered parking spot). The apartment itself was refurbished before we moved in but the building was from the 60's and not pretty. The majority of the other occupants were living in apartments that had not been refurbished since the 70's and were paying considerably less. We had two completely different income brackets in one building, which for the amount of money we were paying wasn't ideal.
Anyway, for a 3 bedroom apartment you are looking at 4,000 to 5,00chf/month, depending on which area you looking at. Closer to the city center it will obviously be more. An idea is to look in neighbouring France, it's much cheaper and public transport goes there (check cities like Ferney-Voltaire, the region of Pays de Gex, Annemasse, and the region of Haute Savoie). The cost of living in France, is generally cheaper too. Many expats live in the Ferney-Voltaire area (its close to the airport and to the UN complex).
Looking for an apartment is not easy in Geneva and it helps considerably if you're company is helping you look for an apartment. I've heard horror stories of Swiss people trying to find apartments (years of looking and being denied on the huge wait lists) but most expats find places easier with the multinational corporations they work for.
Feel free to ask any more questions about living in Geneva! Publis on here used to live in Geneva.
Oh and my DH is the one who works (he's Swiss, orginally from Geneva). I'm in a university French program.
There's plenty of expat groups in Geneva, he could easily find friends who speak English. He could spend his time learning French as well, there's lots of schools in Geneva. What are his interests? It's a multicultural city with lots to do (but very expensive!).
Thanks for the initial information ladies- the numbers definitely give me something to benchmark my offer against. What areas of town would you recommend with a toddler? We want her to be close to parks, etc.
Regarding relocation, my company has a fantastic policy and will provide a ton of relocation support and shipping and will also provide me with an agent to walk us through the rental process.
DH loves outdoors and is generally very active- I think he will try to find expat hiking groups or just generally active groups. He will also likely take some hobby type classes- maybe deeper French lessons or cooking classes.
I am so glad to have found this group!
glocals.com has hiking trips pretty much every weekend, so definitely have him check that out.
An area with nice parks is Champel (Publius, am I spelling this right?). An area to avoid with small children would be the Paquis area, near the train station (red light district, a decent amount of drug dealers and prostitutes at night...but not particularly dangerous). The area near the UN Complex and the Botanical Gardens (not sure of the name of the neigborhood) doesn't have a lot of "parks" but is near the large Botanical Gardens, which is great for kids and it's open year round, it's also near the lake front.
As Publius said, check out glocals.com, but also World Radio Switzerland and www.englishforums.ch for activities.