Swiss apartment rents and prices are coming under downward pressure even though the housing market is booming. Is this a harbinger of a turnaround in the real-estate market?
House prices in Switzerland maintained their upward trend in July, but apartment prices and rents fell back.
House prices rose by another 1.5 percent on the month in July, the «Swiss Real Estate Offer Index» published Tuesday showed. The data is calculated by ImmoScout24 and the real estate service provider IAZI.
The average price per square meter offered as of the end of July was 7,041.50 Swiss francs ($7,775.80), over 600 francs higher than a year earlier. «Over the past 12 months, advertised house prices have risen 9.4 percent, almost hitting double-digit growth,» Scout24’s chief operating officer, Martin Waeber, said in the press release.
Are Apartment Prices Falling?
A typical house with 160 square meters of living space is advertised for sale at an average price of around 1.13 million francs. «If you want to buy residential property, you will need deeper and deeper pockets as well as a large dollop of good luck because of scarce supply,» Waeber said.
By contrast, prices of apartments for sale fell by 0.6 percent on the month in July to an average of 7,779.40 francs a square meter. However, this was 6.8 percent higher a year ago.
Rents fall
An average of 2,163 francs per month including ancillary costs was charged for a typical 100-square-meter apartment at the end of July. This means the average rental price of 259.60 francs per square meter is almost back to where it was at the start of 2021.
Lower rents in the Lake Geneva region strongly influenced the move because of the high prices and turnover there.
