Well, I've spent two weeks learning the hard way so I thought maybe people can point to advice I should have read before I started :-)
I wanted a furnished apt with separate bedroom/living room for three months.
I began with the idea that I might get one for 2000 CHF/mth. After searching immostreet and various short-term apartment sites I was prepared to pay almost twice that. I liked one but of course not yet having arrived in Geneva at the time the landlord gave it to the person that called first. Lesson#1: pay a hotel for a few weeks and start searching then (snag: working 8-5, isn't that a bit hard to do?)
I liked another one and went quite quickly through the application process. Some points were not clear to me and I asked some questions (eg "Is the first payment one month rent as deposit plus the first month in advance?") and got more forms back but no answers. I returned them, asking more questions in my emails. When I got the final contract I realised they wanted an initial payment of almost 12,000 CHF for two months as deposit plus the first month in advance! Lesson#2: if someone is not answering your questions, they are either not reading them (relying only on what is written on official forms) or not understanding them ( their first language is almost certainly not English).
I also learned about costs not stated in the advertised price : heating extra, electricity extra, wifi extra, nameplate rental (WTF?), cleaning deposit, cleaning charges, administrative charges, VAT (TVA) and probably others I didn't see. Maybe a window tax ;-) ?
I also discovered that they insisted on rental risk insurance but would not tell me what that was or where to get it. So, what is it? It can't be insurance against non-payment - there is no risk as they are being paid in advance. It cannot be contents insurance - I insure my property, not someone else's. When did you ever have to take out insurance to book into a hotel or guest house for a month? And even if you did, any commercial organisation with any sense of customer service would have ready-made contracts for 3 or 6 months to sign - perhaps at a rate a high street insurer might charge for a year, but at least it would simplify the process.
They also wanted to see my salary slips or work contract. I did that, but I felt offended at being asked to disclose commercially sensitive information. It's none of their business, they are getting their money up front and don't need to know how much I earn. (If they ever did not get their money on time any day, they can do what Irish landlords do - just change the lock when I am out to work and I come back to find my possessions - or what's left of them - on the street.)
They also asked for a form of non-poursuite and again did not explain this. Some googling told me that I had to apply online at the geneva.ch website and pay 14 CHF. OK, I did that.
Lesson#3: ask on a forum like glocals.com what the heck all that stuff means, and start again. :-)
I don't have the heart for it at the moment as I found the entire experience frustrating and overbearingly bureaucratic. By contrast, I phoned the Park&Suites in Gaillard, got a two room apartment the next day for (converted to CHF for comparison ) c.2200 /month, 900 damage deposit, no intrusive questions, no demands to jump through legal & administrative hoops, just a straightforward business deal.
Why can't it be as simple as that in Geneva?
