Success Story FGZ 

The success story of FGZ and emonitor

The family home cooperative Zurich is a housing cooperative with 25 settlements at the foot of the Üetliberg in Zurich and focuses on inexpensive living space for families of all generations.

The FGZ has been renting out its entire portfolio via the emonitor software solution since 2015. How this came about and which features of the emonitor application the FGZ particularly values ​​can be found in the following success story of FGZ & emonitor.

Robin Wagner, June 8th, 2021

The housing cooperative, rooted in the Friesenberg district, was founded in 1924. Since then, the settlement area around Friesenberg has been gradually enlarged. Today the FGZ has 2300 residential properties with more than 5700 residents. The entire settlement area comprises around half of Zurich’s Friesenberg district. The FGZ focuses primarily on inexpensive living space for families with children as well as on housing options for the post-childhood phase.

The FGZ housing allocation criteria

Cooperative housing in the city of Zurich is a sought-after commodity. As a cooperative, keeping track of the sometimes innumerable applications is just one of the challenges that the FGZ faces on a daily basis. Who should be awarded the contract for such an apartment and for what reasons? How can the applications be assessed transparently and fairly within a reasonable period of time and the apartments allocated accordingly?

The main criteria for which the FGZ is committed include:

• The focus on households with children as well as housing for the post-childhood phase
• The available living space and the number of users should be in an appropriate relationship to each other (occupancy)
• Ensuring a good social mix
• The allocation of apartments should increasingly be made to financially disadvantaged households (fixed maximum household income and assets for half of all tenancies)
• General priority for existing members of the cooperative 

You can find a detailed description of the FGZ’s apartment allocation criteria here.

How the rental solution from emonitor enables the efficient implementation of the award criteria

The mentioned regulations for the allocation of apartments are very complex.
This is where the rental solution from emonitor comes into play. So that the given apartment allocation criteria can be applied consistently and verifiably, the FGZ uses the software from emonitor, which automatically checks the various criteria. The statutes determine the principles, regulations regulate the details – and the emonitor software enables efficient implementation.

To this end, emonitor, in cooperation with FGZ, implemented the cooperative’s assessment grid in the form of a point system in the rental application. This allows FGZ to assess applications fairly and transparently in accordance with the rental guidelines and statutes, even when there is a large crowd.

The rental solution from emonitor not only makes it easier to assess the applications. The FGZ can efficiently handle all external and internal communication with interested parties or team colleagues, the publication of vacant or new apartments on its own website with the emonitor application.

«The rental process used to be done manually with paper applications. This process was time-consuming, took a long time and the personal data was often not up-to-date due to the filing system. The letting solution from emonitor not only makes our work easier, but also means that we can allocate our available living space in a more transparent and sustainable manner.»

Sabina Berli, Head of Letting and Members
Familienheim-Genossenschaft Zurich 

Since the end of 2015, FGZ has been renting out its entire housing stock using the emonitor software solution. Both in re-letting and first-time letting projects.

These solutions from emonitor are in use at FGZ