Danilo · Updated 2026-09-12 · Sources: Swiss Code of Obligations Art. 253ff (fedlex, tenancy law); ch.ch (rental scam warnings); cantonal police advisories on upfront-payment fraud
Reading a listing critically – what Zügle flags, what you must check yourself
You have found a listing that looks right: the location works and the price fits. Before you enter the numbers into Zügle, or send anyone money, it pays to look more closely. Some warning signs Zügle catches automatically and shows in the comparison; others no software can see, because they never appear in the listing at all. This guide covers both.
"Rent on request" is not a number
Some listings state neither a net nor a gross rent, only "price on request" — Flatfox especially. To Zügle that means: no rent figure at all. Such a listing is never ranked or compared against others; an unknown rent must never look cheap simply because it is missing. If you want to compare it anyway, you have to ask the landlord for the actual figure and enter it by hand.
Net or gross? And what counts as extra charges?
A listing often states a single figure without saying whether extra costs (heating, the *Nebenkosten* advance, sometimes electricity) are already included. Zügle distinguishes net rent from gross rent and, where possible, computes with net rent plus separately stated extras, but only when the listing separates the two. If there is only one number, you have to work out yourself what it covers. What typically belongs in net vs. gross rent, and how to break it down, is covered in Net, gross and extra charges.
Temporary lets and flat swaps
A listing can be a "sublet"/temporary let or a flat swap without saying so in the first line. Flatfox captures some of this structurally (the portal has fields for "temporary" and "swap"); Homegate and pasted text carry it, if at all, only in the description. Zügle shows such a hint as a note on the comparison, but only when the wording gives it away. A temporary tenancy has different legal footing than an open-ended one, for instance around notice: the Code of Obligations governs tenancy generally in Art. 253ff, and a fixed-term lease simply ends on the agreed date without notice being given. Read the actual contract yourself before relying on a note in a listing.
A shared-flat room dressed up as an apartment
A listing can be filed as a whole apartment even though the text is looking for a "Mitbewohner"/"colocataire"/roommate — meaning only one room of an existing shared flat is actually on offer. That is not the portal's mistake: the landlord truthfully enters "apartment" because that describes the property, not how much of it is being let. Zügle treats wording like "WG", "shared flat", "flatmate wanted" or "room in existing shared flat" as a hint, never as a confirmed fact; a hint is shown separately from something the portal itself declared. Comparing one room against your whole household's rent, as if it were your own apartment, produces a badly wrong number; you are not paying the whole rent alone.
When a figure just doesn't look plausible
Zügle runs its own plausibility checks, using rules of thumb rather than official thresholds to flag an obvious typo or an unrealistic figure:
- A rent that looks very low relative to the number of rooms is flagged as possibly
implausible and demoted in a ranking, never excluded; you still see it, with a note.
- A living surface that looks too small or too large **relative to the number of
rooms** (a 2.5-room listing at 160 m², for instance) is flagged the same way.
These checks are Zügle's own rules of thumb, not a legal definition of "too cheap" or "too big". A genuine listing can sit right at the edge of one (a very generous older-building flat, say) and still be correct. The flag asks for a second look; it does not call the listing wrong.
A zip code can point to the wrong municipality
Several Swiss zip codes cover two or more municipalities — sometimes across a cantonal border. That applies not only to where you live today but to the listing itself: if a listing states only a zip code and a place name, it can be attributed to the wrong municipality — and therefore the wrong tax rate. Zügle tries to resolve this correctly using additional signals such as coordinates or the exact locality name where the listing provides them; without them, the attribution stays uncertain. In a borderline case, check yourself which municipality the address actually falls under before trusting the tax difference.
When Homegate shows a wall
Homegate listing pages are protected against automated fetching, so Zügle cannot always load them itself. In that case Zügle offers to let you copy and paste the page yourself: the pasted figures go through exactly the same checks as an automatically fetched listing, including every flag above, but they are labeled "pasted" rather than "fetched automatically", so it stays traceable where a figure came from.
Be wary of paying anything upfront
One warning sign no listing text will ever reveal: being asked to pay before you have viewed the apartment. A legitimate letting asks for a deposit only after a viewing and as part of a signed lease, typically into a dedicated deposit account, never by wire transfer to a private individual abroad. Never pay a deposit, "reservation fee" or any advance before you have seen the apartment and signed a lease. General guidance on rental scams is available, for example, from ch.ch or your cantonal police; when in doubt, call your local police or a consumer-advice office before you pay.
What these figures don't show
- Zügle's plausibility checks are its own rules of thumb, not an official definition;
a flagged listing can still be correct, and an unflagged one can still be wrong.
- Whether a listing is a shared-flat room, a temporary let or a flat swap is only
visible to Zügle when the portal states it structurally or the text says so clearly. If it appears nowhere, Zügle sees none of it.
- Whether the stated municipality is correct can only be judged as well as the listing
itself supplies detail; a bare zip code inside a shared postal area leaves some residual uncertainty.
- Whether a listing is a scam attempt cannot be determined from text alone by any
software. The healthy suspicion around upfront payments stays with you.
- Legal questions about your specific lease are not answered here; this is not legal
advice.
Try it with your own numbers
Enter the figures you have checked and found plausible in the listing into Zügle and let it run the real comparison: