Home prices rose again in January
On the Swiss real estate market, the new year begins the way the old one ended: with rising home prices. However, January brought no change in rents, as the monthly evaluation of the advertisements in the Swiss Real Estate Offer Index shows.
Will 2022 be the year of the trend reversal on the real estate market? If you take January as a measure, there is still little to be said for this possibility. On the contrary: The suppliers of residential property have raised their price expectations again. Single-family homes were advertised at 0.6 percent higher values than in the previous month, and there was also a price premium of 0.3 percent for condominiums. A look at the past twelve months also shows how dynamically the market for owner-occupied housing is developing: House prices have risen by 6.9 percent in this period and apartments have even risen by 7.2 percent. This is shown by the Swiss Real Estate Offer Index, which is collected by the SMG Swiss Marketplace Group in cooperation with the real estate consulting company IAZI AG.
Home ownership remains in demand
Even if the US Federal Reserve raises the key interest rate this year as announced and thereby stems the flood of money, this is unlikely to have any impact on the Swiss home market for the time being. Neither the European Central Bank nor the Swiss National Bank are currently announcing any plans to exit the era of cheap money. “Should the low interest rate policy come to an end, a reserve is in place. After all, according to local financing rules, homebuyers must also be able to afford an interest rate of 4 to 5 percent, which is hardly imaginable today. Home ownership therefore remains extremely attractive,” explains Martin Waeber, Managing Director Real Estate, SMG Swiss Marketplace Group.
Constant rents in January
The advertised rents remained de facto unchanged in January (0.0 percent) on the national average. However, this conceals different regional trends: while rents have risen in the Lake Geneva region (+1.3 percent) and in Ticino (+2.0 percent), for example, in the greater region of Zurich (−1.3 percent) and in the Northwestern Switzerland (−0.4 percent) saw a decline. Rents have hardly changed in the Mittelland (−0.1 percent), in Central Switzerland (−0.1 percent) and in Eastern Switzerland (+0.1 percent). The Swiss Real Estate Offer Index is published on the websites of ImmoScout24 and IAZI AG.