Posted Mon Oct 27 23:23:00 UTC 2008

According to a recently published survey in NZZ Domizil, which has been done by Wüst & Partner (W&P), the global financial crisis hasn’t incited a slump of the Swiss real estate market- so far. Owning a home continues to be one of the most important things in life for Swiss citizens. A nice apartment in a great location is one of the things in life people don't want to miss. The search for a new accommodation depends on size of the household and available income. The biggest group, by numbers, with 23% are couples in an age over 40 years. In that category only 1 of 6 are looking for a new place to live, but one third of them are owner of a property already and now like to move out of their single family house or apartment. This situation will definitely effect the market of single family houses in near future.

Over the past three years, more and more 'older' single family houses have been placed on the market. That has the reason that more and more owners reach an age where they like to sell their home- to downsize- since these properties are more likely bigger houses with more than 6 rooms. W&P predicts that a huge part of the demand for single family houses will be covered by such properties.

The survey shows that for the first time in a long while, more than 4% of the inventory of single family homes have been for sale in the first half of 2008. This increase is due to all the older single family houses being on the market.

The growth of prices will slightly level during the next year (1.2% instead of 1.6% in 2008) but with more regional differences. Prices may even start to decline in some parts of Switzerland. The experts believe that there won’t be big slumps in the overall market, however. Home prices in Switzerland had increased very moderately in the past few years, unlike the UK and the US. Reasons for the price increase in Swiss property are due to a well working rental market and a much more careful placement of home mortgages. A slight delay, ongoing turbulences and a decreasing number of qualified labors might affect our real estate market. Prices will cool down a bit in direction to that process and in some regions, there will be an equal balance. In general, sellers' markets will turn into buyer’s markets, concludes Christian Haupt, of Kuoni Mueller & Partner: http://design.nzzdomizil.ch/immobilien/infos/Immobilienwirtschaft_1.1168687.html

Posted By: Peter Rabitz