Karin Steiner
Cora Olpe lived in England for many years and met her future husband George Roberts there. In 2020, the couple decided to move to Zurich, Switzerland. “That was when we started looking for an apartment,” she says. “Because of the pandemic, it was impossible to view vacant apartments anyway. But we were lucky and found a small apartment in a narrow space.”
Developed own program
However, as parents of a small child, they wanted a four-and-a-half-room apartment. “We discovered that this apartment size is very popular with families. When an apartment like this is advertised on Homegate, the rent is usually horrendous. As a Basel native who had lived in England for a long time, I was not familiar with the principle of building cooperatives. When I was looking for an apartment, I discovered that most cooperatives do not have waiting lists and only advertise on their websites. This means that you have to search through them manually – over 70 websites a day.”
This seemed impossible to the working mother, who works as a scientist at the University of Irchel, and her husband, who is a physicist by profession and works as a programmer. That’s why the couple launched “GenossenSchaffen.ch” almost a year ago. George Roberts developed a program that uses an algorithm to independently search all the pages of building cooperatives for new apartment advertisements. “The advertisements are often only online for a very short time – not infrequently less than 24 hours. Searching for such advertisements manually is therefore extremely time-consuming,” says Cora Olpe.
“We have also found that new construction projects are very interesting. Sometimes hundreds of apartments are advertised overnight. You have to be able to act quickly to get hold of one.” Since the program does not cover new buildings, Cora Olpe and George Roberts manually search the websites of building cooperatives every day for such offers. “It is not uncommon for apartments in new construction projects to be offline again after just a few hours.”
Subscription for five francs
Anyone interested in the search service from www.genossenschaffen.ch can take out a subscription for five francs. They will then be informed by email with information and links about new offers. To ensure that no emails with unsuitable offers end up in their inbox, subscribers can define which apartment sizes they are interested in. “You can also set whether the apartment must be in the city of Zurich or whether the canton of Zurich is also an option.”
The program monitors 98 cooperatives in the canton of Zurich. There is also the non-profit PWG foundation and offers from the city of Zurich. “However, it is very difficult to get a municipal apartment. A few applicants are selected at random and invited to a viewing.”
At www.genossenschaffen.ch you can find an overview of all the cooperatives in the canton and of municipal properties in the city of Zurich. You can also find out which cooperatives have waiting lists. A checklist and tips for applying complete the offer. “We are constantly expanding the program and adding additional filters,” says Cora Olpe. “We already have sections for retirement homes or for the desired apartment size. Based on feedback from our subscribers, we want to add additional filters for the city of Winterthur and for pets. Unfortunately, dogs are not allowed in most cooperatives. We specifically point this out to potential customers before they take out a subscription.”
Running the website takes up a lot of the couple’s time. “I get up early in the morning and answer all the emails. We get a lot of feedback, including, happily, from happy people who have found an apartment.” The activities of “GenossenSchaffen” can also be followed on Instagram.
