Buying and renting more expensive in March
The prices of homes for sale continued to rise in March. This is despite the fact that the number of properties available for purchase on the market has increased since the beginning of the year. The advertised rental prices have also increased, marking a new all-time high with the month just ended.
As the Swiss Real Estate Offer Index compiled by the SMG Swiss Marketplace Group in cooperation with the real estate consultancy IAZI shows, condominiums were advertised at 1.0 per cent higher values in March. Single-family homes also saw an increase, albeit smaller, of 0.3 per cent. The number of single-family homes and condominiums advertised has increased in recent months, which would generally indicate an improvement in the tight property market. “However, we see that sellers of owner-occupied homes continue to assume a stronger willingness to pay for the time being, as the current increase in asking prices shows,” says Martin Waeber, Managing Director Real Estate, SMG Swiss Marketplace Group.
Flat hunters must expect higher rents
As of the general moving-in date at the end of March, the average asking rents in the country have risen by 0.8 percent. Within one year, there has been an impressive increase of 4.6 percent. However, there are large regional differences in the development of rents: The strongest increase was in central Switzerland (2.2 per cent), especially due to the price drivers Zug and Lucerne. The increases in eastern Switzerland (1.1 per cent), the greater Zurich region (1.0 per cent) and the Lake Geneva region (0.9 per cent) are somewhat more moderate. There was hardly any change in the Central Plateau (0.1 per cent), while asking rents fell slightly in Northwestern Switzerland (-0.3 per cent) and Ticino (-0.3 per cent).
Particularly in the three large regions of Zurich, Central Switzerland and Lake Geneva, further price increases are to be expected in the coming months due to the existing housing shortage, ongoing immigration and the decision on the reference interest rate expected in June.