More single-family homes on the market
In 2016, a good 30,300 single-family homes were advertised on Swiss internet portals. This is six percent more than in the previous year.
"Demand for single-family homes is stable overall," said Prof. Dr. Peter Ilg, Head of the Swiss Real Estate Institute (SREI) at the HWZ Hochschule für Wirtschaft Zürich, at the presentation of the Online Home Market Analysis (OHMA) on the Swiss home ownership market. However, in-depth analyses according to regions and price segments showed significant differences in some cases.
For example, insertion times for single-family homes varied greatly between the individual regions surveyed. In the Zurich region, the average house was advertised for 56 days, while in Ticino it had to be advertised for two and a half times longer, 140 days, as the survey by SREI and homegate.ch shows.
Single-family homes in centers and suburban communities were in particularly high demand, Ilg added. Almost all regions surveyed showed insertion times for centers and the first agglomeration belt (suburban communities) that were below the average for the region. In the suburban communities, smaller single-family homes with a purchase price of less than CHF 1 million are most in demand. An average house in the first agglomeration belt of the centers in the Espace Mittelland region was offered for 0.85 million, whereas in the Geneva region, the asking price in this area was almost double, at 1.6 million.
In the Espace Mittelland region, the most affordable properties can be purchased in centers, at an average of CHF 5,000 per square meter. By contrast, in expensive Swiss regions such as Zurich and Geneva, single-family homes in centers are offered for CHF 8,100 and CHF 10,500 per square meter, respectively.
