Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

It sounds like my house. It's livable, but with old heating and dated decor, it maybe needs 300k to refurb to modern standards. I would be glad to collect 1m plus on it. I'm not convinced there are too many buyers out there for such a place, but let's see.

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

How many rooms?

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

Sounds crazy... So we either have a huge impending inflation (are salaries gone catch up?!) or an incredible bubble...

Both are really scaring me...

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

Correct me if I am wrong here.

I also understand there is a law currently in the making protecting the "atmosphere" of the Swiss villages by preventing further densification of built up areas i.e. if you have a piece of land, with for example 400 m3 living space, you may not increase this space beyond that volume, potentially driving up future prices even more.

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

A law for all Swiss villages seems very unlikely, planning is not usually handled federally except for some very high level rules.

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

six.

modernized houses in the same area are being offered at 1.8m and a friend of mine in the same village told me a smaller house recently sold for 1.5m. so it might be worth doing the refurb and selling it.

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

It always surprises me how people lean towards having a house instead of a flat. TBH, I enjoy living in apartment where I don't have to bother with the house maintenance and I can even close the doors for several months with no worries as my neighbors will keep an eye on it in general during my absence.

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

Yeah it's really basic supply and demand for any country like this and Switzerland is well known for high demand for properties. House prices will only go up long-term in any place where demand is high and space is at a premium.

If I didn't mind losing my life savings on a deposit for a good property then I would love to do so and have my a place to call my own. However at the moment there's just no point while my rent is comparatively cheap for living in such a good central location.

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

Fully agree. Technically I was able to take mortgage as soon as I came to Switzerland but I didn't want to seeing how cheap the rent is comparatively. Even now it's tempting to think about moving to Zug, Schwyz, Lucerne, Zurich due to the tax heaven and more "Swiss" life but the property prices are a cold shower. It looks hardly possible in my lifetime to recover on taxes what I would have to top up to a property in central-eastern Switzerland.

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

That assumes salaries rise as the affordability rules don't change.

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

Here‘s a reason for not living in a flat:
https://www.englishforum.ch/daily-li...-camel-me.html

If you buy a flat you have to budget for maintenance and you have no personal control over the cleaning, repairing and redecorating common areas.

Further to the noise described above from parties, you run the risk of balcony smokers.

Why do you think house neighbours won‘t keep an eye on a property for other neighbours? Ours feeds our cat while we are away...

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

Yes, I have seen friends who had apartments with such maintenance costs (nebenkosten) in the region of CHF1000 per month - I have rented apartments for less than that.

Meanwhile, for a house, everything you spend is for your own house.

Totally agree with AbFabs assessment. I live in a terraced house, which still runs the risk of noisy neighbours (in my case not often a problem, and the walls are pretty thick), but in my opinion it totally rocks to have an own house over an apartment.

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

You aren‘t losing your life savings, you are changing the asset class they are held in. I can understand why you wouldn‘t want to cash in a securities portfolio to buy a house, but you can pledge them rather than sell them. If the money is just sat in the bank, it‘s losing value anyway.

(Depending on what post-COVID normality is) I think what you will see is if people want to buy more generally they will be constrained by affordability in the prime locations as you say, but will look to live further away from those locations, pushing up the prices on the periphery.

That‘s about what we pay in Nebenkosten for our top floor Terrassenwohnung with garden (so effectively a semi-detached house on its side). BUT... nearly half of that is paying into the sinking fund and another chunk is for the heating and another for building insurance. Overall I‘d say 80% of what we pay, we would need to pay if we had a freestanding house.

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

Most of my money is invested in stocks and I had no idea I could pledge them so I would need to inform myself there, thanks. Still, if I am honest with myself I don't really want that scale of financial commitment at the moment and would rather pay rent and stay flexible and save more money until I have really decided to commit to getting a place. I'm in no rush. :)

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

I wouldn't purchase an apartment in Switzerland for this reason alone. I looked at many flats and was frankly horrified at the monthly maintenance costs, which in some cases was equal to renting an apartment.

Maybe I'm not use to Swiss prices yet, but the management of the flats certainly seem quite price insensitive and prone to spending money on ridiculous things that I would never dream to waste money on. (one example was a absurdly expensive earthquake insurance in an areas so geologically safe from earthquakes it was a proposed to be a nuclear waste storage site).

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

It sounds like it's impossible to happen in Switzerland, but I guess that's what can happen when you rent a room/apartment from the building owner just subletting some part of his house.

Wow, it's also a good lesson to watch out for any sweet language, better assume everything exaggerated :eek:

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

The "problem" is the change of Raumplanungsgesetz a few years ago.
https://www.are.admin.ch/are/de/home...umsetzung.html
It resulted in de-zoning of surplus building land in more remote places and general direction towards better usage of the existing and new land - i.e. in the existing urban/regional centres more flats per land area are allowed, and few/no new land for low density "urban sprawl" single home zones.
In the spring of 2020 I saw in Vaud sudden run on single family homes - any reasonably priced house in even relatively remote area that lingered for many months suddenly disappeared.

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

Now I understand why so many houses (mostly shared houses) were built in Lausanne area recently, squeezed here and there, at any corner

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

This was also mentioned as a driver for higher prices in the outer Zurich regions too.

Re: have zurich house prices gone up in the last year?
 

To put it all in perspective though, it's not just a Swiss phenomenon. Australia and New Zealand for example have experienced prices rises of 2% per month.

The main problem is (almost) free money. Ideally an increase in mortgage rates, even if small, would give a reality check to property values, but don't see that happening for the next 5 years or so.