What regulation says you have to build on any land you buy here? only the maxamium size is regulated. The owners of 2 plots can choose to build right up to the border if they wanted to.

In the UK houses are often valued by how many bedrooms rather than size, which is the reason for tiny accodomation & high prices.

Interstingly my parents own 1 of a terrace of 4 houses built in Highgate in 1960, if those 4 houses were knocked down & replaced by 2 semi detached houses, there is a potential profit after build costs of 60% above current market value. Houses in many places have a negative value, even when the price very high.

Huh?!? Where?

Sometimes towns sell some of their own land to attract new residents (aka taxpayers) and this land often comes with the condition that you build a house and take residence within 2 or 3 years. But other than that I've never seen such a kind of regulation.

Plenty, even in Switzerland- but not on the Leman or Zurich riviera!
A friend of ours built a house in non touristy part of Colorado about 10 years ago on a huge plot- so big he has no idea where it starts or begins.

In the Jura mountains, this is still the case to some extent if the land cannot be built on (as is our case). The value of our house is defo ont he house, with a couple of acres as a bonus.

If you mean about 30 year old housed in Highgate N6 London being knocked down, I can tell you of 2 houses my friends parents built both were archethects.


First one is here
http://www.e-architect.co.uk/london/highgate_house.htm

Second one is 15 Denewood Rd London N6 one picture from google earth last year, more recent photo from my iPhone last year. They paid £1,700,000 then knocked down the house. The new house has twice the frontage, it's not clear from the photos however there was parking & garages to the left of the house, the new house uses the whole plot.

The key point in this discussion is that the market is highly illiquid, and that demand far outpaces supply in certain 'hot' areas. Spill-over from that demand has also affected areas not usually though of as being as attractive as the 'hot' areas, if they are within commuting distance.

I am surprised at the rise in prices in areas with much higher tax rates, less favorable transportation links, poorer infrastructure - in the past prices there had stayed pretty flat. But these towns are still within commuting distance to Zürich city, so nowadays folks who have been squeezed out of the hot areas are compromising - and even properties in these areas are trending upwards.

All of which means that what the seller paid for the house X years ago is pretty much irrelevant - he will ask Y, because that is his perception of what the market will bear, what it will take to motivate him to sell.

Knowing what other properties in the neighborhood have sold for in the last 3-6 months is valuable information as you decide if the property is a fair value to you.

Of course you can negotiate - but bear in mind that it is for the large part a seller's market if only because of the dearth of properties available. When you start to negotiate down, be prepared to be told, "No. Go away."

Obviously there will be exceptions to this - 'problem' properties are where you have more leeway. But be sure that you can live with the problems.

Given the unique-ness of the CH market, all that really matters is your perception of price vs. value, and whether or not you can afford the financing for the next 10+ years. Your perception of value may well differ from mine - but in this market defining fundamental value is problematic.

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A word about land prices per m2:

The top price really only refers to currently vacant land that has already been zoned buildable, and usually W2 at that, where access is both possible and laready permitted, and bringing in water, electric, sewer is permitted and not so very difficult.

For instance in my town the average price of land is usually quoted at CHF 3000+ per m2. By that reckoning I should be sitting pretty, eh? But no... My chunk o' dirt with glorious views of the lake and mountains is part of a Quartier with a strict Gestaltungsplan - a new buyer absolutely will not be allowed knock down my quite 'average' house and build a luxury villa. And no one in his right mind (or without serious Vitamin B and the right family name ) would pay luxury villa land prices to end up with an average middle-class house. So my land, nice as it is, is worth less than that eye-popping price per m2.

Most of the land in town has already been built up, so when buying an existing home to estimate the m2 price of the land you need to factor in whether or not you will be allowed to renovate/rebuild a home, and to what standard.

Oh, and by the way - that 3000+ land price really only refers to the few secret plots of (current) farm land that had been optioned off to developers years ago, waiting for a chance to take it out of the BGBB. No individual (unless connected as above) will ever get a chance to buy that land.


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It's a jungle out there, I tells ya.

Out of interest what is the build factor of that land? above 0.5 I assume.

Exactly. And that's why they want to have two taxpayers on two plots, and not one on two plots.

Which then gives us how many (semi-detached) houses?

However it's not a requirement to build on all the land, it's a personal choice. You could just build 1 & have a bigger garden, if circumstances change build the other.

Who is to say the tax take would be higher from 2 families who can only just afford the houses against someone who will happily pay an extra million or more for a larger garden!

Agreed. But such rules are rather the exception than the norm since most plots on the market are sold by private owners and not by towns.

Depends. Oftentimes, it's also Gemeindeland that is sold. But in any case, it is the Gemeinde that defines the Bebauungsplan, and not the owner of the land.

The Gemeinde has rules that need to be followed, you could build a block of flats or a single house of the same usable floor space. They don't dictate the mamamium size of your rooms for example just overall size based on the plot.

In the UK I know of many individual houses with big gardens that have been pulled down recently to put a much bigger house or a group of houses, using practically 90+ of the land. This just wouldn't be allowed in CH, as said max land use normally 51% approx.

And of course Yorkshire rules of supply and demand are very different to London or Surrey. The house next door but one to my sil in Surrey has just been bought for near 3 mio £!!! to be pulled down and replaced by .... ONE much bigger house, bringing the value to 5mio+. Part of the problem here are the UK regs which stipulate that VAT is paid on alterations/enlargment but not on new build Who says Switzerland is expensive (as usual location, location, location).