Housing: Rents stable, property prices rising only slightly
According to the latest Swiss Real Estate Offer Index, asking rents for apartments were 0.2 percent lower across Switzerland in May than in the previous month of April. On an annual basis, however, there is still an increase of 1.4 percent.
Development of asking rents and prices for residential property (charts © Swiss Real Estate Offer Index)
According to the Swiss Real Estate Offer Index, the cheapest rental properties are to be found in the major regions of eastern Switzerland (222 CHF/sqm net) and Espace Mittelland (230 CHF/sqm). The most expensive regions remain Zurich at 313 CHF/sqm and Lake Geneva at 306 CHF/sqm.
"Nowhere in Switzerland is the vacancy rate as low as in Geneva," says Martin Waeber, Director ImmoScout24. Although the demand for additional apartments in the Lake Geneva region is considerable, there is hardly any investment in residential construction due to restrictive regulatory provisions, which leads to higher rents.
Price increase for condominiums eases
While asking prices for single-family homes were 1.2 lower than in the previous month, condominiums showed a slight increase of 0.4 percent. However, this was much more moderate compared with the increase in the previous months of March (+1.4%) and April (+1.1%). Across Switzerland, the price for a square meter of net living space for condominiums is close to CHF 7,150. On an annual basis, prices for condominiums have risen by 3.3 percent.
"According to various market participants, transaction volumes in the first few months of 2016 were down by up to 50 percent in some places compared with the same period last year," says Waeber. It therefore remains to be seen whether this decline will also have an impact on the price structure in the residential property categories. (ah)
