Tag Archives: Property

Four times a year the rate of interest used to set the rents in Switzerland is reviewed. If the aggregate average mortgage rate goes down some renters can request lower rent. If it goes up some landlords can raise rents. This time the rate rose from 1.25% to 1.50%. Higher rents are likely to follow. Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.comThe interest rate used to set the rent reference rate was the average rate on Swiss mortgage loans outstanding at 31 March 2023. The average rate this time...

On 15 May 2023, the Federal Statistical Office published its latest residential property price index. During the first quarter of 2023, average Swiss home prices fell by 1.2%, leaving them 3.9% higher than a year before. Photo by marishalaugh on Pexels.comStand alone houses dropped in price by 1.3% while apartments lost 1.1% of their value over the three months to 31 March 2023. Homes losing the greatest value during the quarter were stand alone houses in rural areas (-4.5%). Apartments...

A report published on 4 May 2023 cites land scarcity as the main reason behind Switzerland’s housing shortage. Photo by Max Rahubovskiy on Pexels.comIn the 20 years between 2001 and 2021 Switzerland’s population grew from 7.3 to 8.7 million, a rise of 1.4 million residents or 19%. And with annual net immigration of around 50,000, building enough homes to house everyone in Switzerland is an ongoing challenge. The survey, which aimed to understand the housing situation in cities and...

According to a report published this week, 40% of employees in Switzerland are predicted to regularly work from home within the next 10 years. Photo by Justin Neal on Pexels.comIn 2001, less than 1% of Switzerland’s employees did more than half of their work from home. By 2019, the same figure was 25%. Then Covid-19 struck. During the first lockdown in spring of 2020, 50% of workers worked from home, 20% partially and 30% exclusively. Since then many have returned to the office. But...

Buying has become much more expensive than renting in Switzerland, according to a report by the bank Credit Suisse. Photo by Curtis Adams on Pexels.comThe market for owner-occupied homes is currently undergoing a reversal of fortunes, triggered by the spike in mortgage interest rates in 2022, said the bank. Although owners enjoyed unprecedented low mortgage rates for a decade, rates have more than doubled over the past year. After 13 years, buying is more expensive than renting again....

With Swiss rents high and rising it should follow that more would be invested in building new homes. However, that isn’t the case. The newspaper Blick asks experts why. As rents rise landlords should stand to make more from their investments. Many are also quick to assume that higher rents mean landlords are making excessive profits at the expense of renters. However, in practice it isn’t that simple. Firstly, when deciding to invest investors must consider yield. When the value of...

Four times a year the rate of interest used to set the rents in Switzerland is reviewed. If the aggregate average mortgage rate goes down some renters can request lower rent. If it goes up some landlords can raise rents. This time the rate remained at 1.25%, however it was close to moving to 1.5%. Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels.comThe interest rate used to set the rent reference rate was the average rate on Swiss mortgage loans outstanding at 31 December 2022. The average rate this...

In 2021, 1.4 million households in Switzerland owned their home, 36.3% percent of all households, according to statistics published on 23 February 2023. © Stbernardstudio | Dreamstime.comThe rate of homeownership in Switzerland has remained fairly stable since 2000. Back then it was 34.6%. After rising to 38.4% in 2016, it has declined gradually to where it is today (36.3%). Cantons with the lowest rates of homeownership tend to be urban and expensive. Basel-City (16.0%), Geneva...

More and more soil is being impacted by drought. Clay soils in particular are affected by drought. These soils expand and contract depending on their water content and often crack when dry. Building on them can be risky and requires a particular structural design. © Zimmytws | Dreamstime.comHome owners in parts of France have already been impacted by recent dry spells. Roughly half of France is at risk of the effects of droughts on clay soil and 10 million homes have already suffered...

© Ocskay Mark | Dreamstime.com A sharp rise in rent in December 2022 (+1.1%) left the average Swiss rent 4.3% higher than at the beginning of 2022, according to the Swiss Real Estate Offer Index, published on 4 January 2023 by SMG Swiss Marketplace Group. This annual jump of 4.3% exceeds the annual CPI increase of 2.8% announced this week. Increases varied significantly by region. The highest rent rise was recorded in Ticino (+8.4%). The jump in Greater Zurich...