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housing shortageThis is where most of the apartments are missing in Switzerland
These three charts show how the Swiss housing market is really doing.
At the same time, building permits and applications have been falling significantly since 2018.
20min/Marco Zangger
According to the tenants’ association, Switzerland is dependent on skilled workers from abroad, and they need a place to live.
20min/Marco Zangger
That’s what it’s about
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The number of vacant apartments in Switzerland has been falling since 2020.
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The number of apartments advertised on the Internet is also decreasing.
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But the housing shortage was worse, around 2010.
Credit Suisse predicts that a shortage of housing in Switzerland will be unavoidable. According to UBS, living space is already scarce in Zurich and Geneva. This leads to social tensions, squatting and demonstrations. And the companies are also fighting for real estate.
The development of the vacancy rate shows the state of the housing situation in Switzerland. The Federal Statistical Office publishes this indicator once a year. The office counts apartments as vacancies if they are permanently advertised for rent and are vacant on the reference date.
The vacancy rate is falling
The latest data is from June 1, 2022. At that time there were 61,496 vacant apartments in Switzerland, with the vacancy rate being 1.31 percent of the total housing stock, including single-family houses. On June 1, 2021, 71,365 apartments were still empty. This roughly corresponded to the housing stock of the city of Bern and was a decrease of almost ten percent compared to 2020.
The vacancy rate fell by 0.23 percentage points between 2021 and 2022. “Such a significant decline within a year was last observed 20 years ago,” wrote the Federal Statistical Office in September. However, the homeowners’ association points out that the key figure should be treated with caution – the municipalities recorded the number differently.
The housing shortage is greatest here
The lower the vacancy rate, the greater the shortage of apartments. According to the federal government, it is high in the cantons of Zug, Obwalden and Graubünden, for example. The vacancy rate is also low on Lake Geneva and in the Zurich region compared to the rest of Switzerland.
In the canton of Zug, the figure was 0.33 percent, in Obwalden 0.48 percent and in Graubünden 0.61 percent. In the canton of Geneva it was 0.38 percent and in the canton of Zurich 0.6 percent. The vacancy rate was highest in Ticino (2.49 percent), in the canton of Solothurn (2.66 percent) and in Jura (2.96 percent).
But the situation was worse: in 2010, the real estate consultant IAZI calculated a vacancy rate of less than half a percent for the city of Zurich. In Geneva, Winterthur and Vevey it hovered around the 0.25 percent mark. For IAZI, the unrealized rental income of the apartment landlords counted as vacancy. The federal vacancy rate in 2010 was 0.92 percent.
Fewer and fewer advertised apartments
A map of Switzerland from Raiffeisen Economic Research shows how the apartments advertised on the internet changed between December 31, 2021 and December 31, 2022. The number was declining in all cantons.
The number of apartments advertised online decreased in 2022.
Raiffeisen Economic Research
The decline was strongest in eastern Switzerland, where it was over 35 percent in many cantons. In the Lake Geneva region, in the cantons of Valais and in the cantons of Ticino, however, the decline was less pronounced.
The parties have different proposals for a solution to the housing shortage:
SP relies on cooperative housing: Jacqueline Badran sees the problem primarily in the high rents. She calls for a “blatant expansion” of non-profit housing construction. As short-term measures, the SP national councilor wants to ban Airbnb and ban business apartments from the residential zones.
Greens want to settle fewer companies and expats: National Councilor Bastien Girod also relies on non-profit housing. A problem is the location promotion, says Girod.
Middle against regulations proliferation when building: St. Gallen Central National Councilor Nicolò Paganini is of the opinion that the approval processes are taking far too long. In addition, one must also consider an expansion of the building zones.
Green liberals: “Tear down an old house sometimes”: For GLP President Jürg Grossen, one way to combat the housing shortage is to simplify the approval process.
SVP focused on immigration: Party President Marco Chiesa calls on Justice Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider to transfer the asylum procedure to a third country or to transit zones at the border. Switzerland must implement the constitutional mandate and independently control immigration.
FDP: “Analyze the situation”: Councilor of States Damian Müller demands from the Federal Council that it analyzes the problems in the housing sector and submits a plan of measures.
You can read the full article on the party’s recipes against the housing shortage here.