We are looking around to buy an apartment in Kanton Zurich, around the lake, having seen a lot of apartment adverts sitting on homegate for quite a long period, I am wondering, how is the swiss property price fetching these days? Are there rooms for negotiation? Is it the norm that apartment sells for under the asking price? has the market stagnated? your experience is highly appreciated.

Just as anywhere, it depends on how motivated the sellers are. We were able to buy under the asking price. Yet also seen many properties sit in the market for many years because the seller was not in a hurry to sell.

... and some properties go for more than the asking price, when the purchasers want to be (fairly) sure they get the house over all comers.


OP, if the apartment has been sitting around for sale for a while, there's no harm in asking for a reduction. The worst that could happen is you get rebuffed.

Usually only if the seller needs to sell.
Often the case with expats (or foreigners in general) moving on, who don't have the luxury of waiting a year for the right buyer.
If the location is good, there are usually buyers lined up.

Banks have their own valuation of a property. You can ask them for guidance and communicate the result to the seller.
I would hesitate to be too blunt about that, though ("I'm only paying X because my bank says it's not worth more than X").
Rather, in negotiations, I'd just point out that the bank is only willing to finance X and this is as much as you can afford.
You can always later say that your in-laws lent you Y if the seller is willing to go down a bit with the price but not the full amount.

But I'm really no expert at this.

I just know that I wouldn't be too thrilled by people trying to negotiate me down on something I want to sell ;-)
The seller, most likely, has mentally already pocketed the money he asked for originally...

As said, just depends. I can assure you that people trying to barter you down can seriously annoy you- just depends if you have to sell or not
I lost some money on one house selling cheaper to someone I really liked and wanted to have our happy home- than to someone offering more I just could not stand! And we 3 times bought houses much cheaper than the asking price because people wanted to sell to us - and they loved they family home and didn't want to sell unless they like the future new owners. It is not all about money for some, within reason.

All very sensible, I guess I may stand for a chance if negotiate with private sellers. Has anyone negotiated down prices from house builders for the new built apartment/houses?

Also I am wondering are there Swiss websites for checking the historic sold price for properties. It would extremely useful to check if seller is putting the properties on the "resting line".

I think you can reasonably state that you would like to renovate X, Y and Z to get it to where you need it to be, and negotiate from there. Talk about changing the heating system, the plumbing, electrical, etc. I reasoned with them, and they understood.

When we sold our flat, we slightly overpriced it. Sure enough the buyer offered less, we proposed a counter offer and it was all done and dusted; contract was signed two weeks ago.

Not saying from Swiss experience but from the UK - you are more likely to get them to add in upgrades or extras on fittings than a price reduction; they can do these at trade prices, and it doesn't risk setting a price-reduction precedent for the development as a whole.

On the latter - https://en.comparis.ch/immobilien/preisentwicklung for a map of advertised priced including historic. Particularly interesting is to see the same property advertised several times, recently often with a decreasing price.

If a property has been sitting around for ages - it's priced too high for the current market. Simple as that.

If the owner is not willing to accept that then the property will remain on homegate.

So, you've got nothing to lose by asking.

We offered about 10% lower than the asking price. They came down by 5%. Then we said, ok, 5%, but asked them to pay for the architect checking the house and the painting inside and outside (worth about 40k). They agreed.


A few weeks later, we sold our old apartment for about 12% above our asking price.

Which rather goes against those people on this forum who seem adamant that prices are fixed.

Prices are definitely not fixed - we paid less than the asking price, we know someone who paid the price, and someone who paid more.

The big questions are:

• Is the price fixed in the mind of the seller : they may simply be bloody minded about it despite logic, offering less may make them simply walk away, or it may just take time for them to come around.
• Does the seller have a deadline : they have to be flexible, offer lower and work from there.
• Is there competition for the property : it's a sellers market, offer your best and cross fingers; also try to bond with seller, work on sentimental side; or go in aggressive with a higher offer and demand to take it off the market immediately with a deposit.

And of course - how much do you want it?

Exactly. One guy came to see our house (in UK) and began to say he would need to add a full length conservatory, and it would cost hims 50k, and then he would have to add a wing for a 3rd bathroom and that would be another 50k- so we would have to take both off the price. I looked at him, smiled and told him he'd obviously got the wrong house and better be on his way. His parting shot was 'but it is a buyers' market now' and I replied 'well yes, but it doesn't mean I've got to sell to you, bye'. He was stunned- we sold the house the next day- and it is now a childrens' nursery and language school. I love to see the pictures on t'internet- a very happy place.

The house we bought (empty, when we found it) had had a very comprehensive survey and assessment done, which supported the selling price (also included deductions related to assessed renovations). This can be useful with negotiation, but if you find the survey recommends xCHF and the house is also up for the same amount (as ours was), then maybe negotiation is limited. Notwithstanding, after we had renovated and discovered other hidden defects, we were left feeling that we'd overpaid slightly (but not much).

Otherwise, in our search, there were some houses that almost appeared un-sellable; they'd been there for years, with the advertised price slowly crumbling over time - along with the state of the house, as they're usually unoccupied.

There was a huge 'mansion' in Oberrohrdorf, festering (empty, of course) on the market for years (layout and design was utterly useless; massive open plan living area, with tiny rooms on the periphery, including tiny kitchen [what is it with tiny kitchens here, and ridiculous ideas of layouts?]). Anyway, it's not listed anymore.

Friends of ours bought a large house that had been built [and then left empty - surprise!] and untouched for twelve years (no idea what the story was). As a result, most of the equipment had degraded by the time they moved in (e.g. heating system had never been switched on, hob blew up when switched on, etc..).

We looked at a house in Würenlos (again, empty!); top location, but the renovation standards were dire. The price, however, was astronomically over-priced, and the estate agent really knew it (and we got the impression she had had enough of showing people around, only for them to engage in pointless negotiations, or walking away). We knew it too and did negotiate, but the seller would hardly budge and after three rounds, we threw the towel in. Eventually, he de-listed it, tried to rent it, failed, tried to sell again, and either succeeded or failed, as it's never been listed since.

__________________
- Thanks
Chris

Bought from an auslander, sold to an auslander.


The Swiss, sorry to say, are very difficult buyers/sellers.

Perhaps because the Swiss in general do not buy and sell houses every few years like many Brits do- when they build a house it is generally for life- and generally to their own design, not off-the-peg (things are changing fast now, but even so).

I think it is hard to generalise. Properties are unique and sellers and buyers have different circumstances. On top of that the market dynamic is always changing.

I apologize for generalizing, but that was my experience.

The Swiss potential buyers come to view the house with the normal "must have" checklist, as everyone else does, but then proceed to try to tick every damn box. Then they want to view it again with the parents (who presumably is helping with the downpayment), and then 1 or 2 more times before telling us that it is too dark, or too noisy, or too close to the building next door, etc. etc. I guess what Odile said is true, they want to buy only once in their life and therefore want to buy the perfect property.

The auslanders on the other hand can decide very quickly to buy if 8 boxes out of 10 are ticked.

When we bought the house, the seller also told us of the same experience. He got tired of 2 other potential Swiss buyers who already viewed the property for the umpteenth time and when we put in a lower offer, he was willing to just sell it.

What I have seem to notice with a few friends/work collegues is they buy an apartment and then have decided to sell up when their kids are teenagers or about to fly the nest and buy a house. Then they ask the question why did we buy? Kids gone, house too big to clean, garden, getting older etc and then they talk about or revert back to an apartment!