Case study: First letting at Baugenossenschaft Vrenelisgärtli

The Baugenossenschaft Vrenelisgärtli is in high demand: it offers affordable housing in a fantastic location in Unterstrass and a community where people know each other and support one another as neighbors. But joining the cooperative is very difficult: there has been a freeze on admissions to the waiting list for some time. All the more extraordinary, then, was the renting of 35 apartments a few days ago. Read our report on this special (first) rental of Tokeh here.

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83 apartments in a prime location

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The Tokeh project is being built in Unterstrass near Bucheggplatz. Between 2022 and 2025, 83 apartments with 1.5 to 5.5 rooms are being created. We had been following the construction project for months and had also gone on site to see the buildings taking shape. In the spring, the website of the Baugenossenschaft Vrenelisgärtli said that internal letting was underway. So we waited patiently and visited the website almost daily to make sure we didn’t miss any information.

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A somewhat ‘vague’ announcement

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On June 28, the time had come: we saw that the text on the website had been changed. It now said that at the beginning of July, rentals to external prospective tenants would take place. The exact date and time were not specified. Pretty complicated. So we sent our subscribers who were interested in the announced apartment sizes an “advance warning” that it would probably happen soon. From then on, we checked the website constantly. We were quite nervous; after all, we didn’t want to miss the rental launch under any circumstances. This system, where everyone is left in the dark, is not exactly user-friendly. Anyone who doesn’t check such websites every day risks missing an extremely good opportunity for a great apartment. This is where our subscription offers incredible added value.

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Application form by post, please

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On Friday, July 5, it kicked off: when we checked the website in the morning, we found that the rental had started at 8:00 a.m. (a popular time for initial rentals by cooperatives!). In addition to apartments in the new Tokeh building, there were also a few apartments in other buildings (Fresco, Trapez) very close by. In total, 35 apartments were listed. So a great many of the 83 new apartments in Tokeh had been allocated internally. Whether this included only cooperative members or also their family members and friends, we will probably never know. In any case, there was now an application form on the website, as well as information on the individual apartments to download. There was no need to rush quite as much as recently with Buchwiesen: a time window had been set. The documents would remain online until Monday, July 8 at 8:00 a.m. You have to apply by post; electronic documents are not accepted. We of course sent this information immediately to our subscribers. Hopefully everyone heeded the call and at least downloaded the documents. You can still apply until July 18.

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It takes perseverance .... or our subscription

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Today, on July 8, the floor plans and the application form actually disappeared from the website at 9:00. Instead, it now says that application dossiers will be accepted until July 18. Receipt of applications will not be confirmed. Those with a chance of an apartment will be invited to an interview in August. And thus the rental of the long-awaited Tokeh wrapped up in just three days.  With many of these new-build projects, the system doesn’t strike us as very user-friendly. You have to constantly check the cooperative’s or the project’s website to make sure you don’t miss the rental launch. There are no newsletters or other information systems. If you’re away on vacation or otherwise busy for a few days, it can already be too late. This is where we come in with our Suchabo: we do the work for our subscribers and monitor the sought-after new-build projects for them. That way, they can focus on other tasks, confident they won’t miss the rental launch for great apartments.