2024-03-26 13:24:45
26.03.2024, 14:2426.03.2024, 14:30
For many people, the dream of owning their own home is becoming increasingly distant. In the last five years alone, the prices of single-family homes in the canton of Zurich have risen by a quarter, according to an analysis by the Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB).
Having your own house remains a dream for many people.Image: Shutterstock
They are now at a level “that is unaffordable for the vast majority of young families,” said Ursina Kubli, head of real estate research at ZKB, on Tuesday at a media conference.
In the latest study “Immobilien aktuell”, the ZKB evaluated all single-family homes in the canton and compared them with the prices retroactively as of 2018. The cantonal bank examined a total of 102,947 properties.
Virtually unaffordable
One finding: the more expensive the community, the higher the price growth. Prices in the city of Zurich, for example, have risen by 35 percent or 690,000 francs since 2018 and now average 2.7 million francs for a single-family home. Around Lake Zurich, the price of more than one in ten single-family homes (12%) rose by over a million francs.
And “cheap” houses worth less than a million francs are becoming increasingly rare. While in 2018 there were over 25,000 properties that fell into this price category, last year the number was 7,800 single-family homes.
The hurdles to buying your own four walls are getting higher and higher. Kubli gives a calculation example for single-family homes with an increase in value of one million francs:
“In order to meet the usual financing criteria, prospective buyers would have to bring in 200,000 more assets and earn 160,000 francs more per year compared to five years ago.”
No relaxation in sight
“The young couples are increasingly being left behind,” Kubli continued. The ZKB also compared real estate prices with anonymized tax data from the Canton of Zurich.
Result: While in 2018 there were 13 percent of the population who could even afford a “medium-priced” property, in 2023 9 percent still had the financial means.
There is also no price drop in sight. For 2024 and 2025, the real estate experts at ZKB expect the price of residential property to increase by 3 percent per year.
“We are miles away from falling prices,” Kubli explained. Prices of over 3 million francs per single-family home are now “no longer uncommon”: the inventory is too low given the continued high demand.
Tenants also under pressure
According to Kubli, the “pressure points in the real estate market” are not only increasing when it comes to home ownership. Of course, the tenants also felt the market situation. In the canton of Zurich alone, 20,000 additional residents moved in last year with a need for 10,000 additional apartments and at the same time construction activity is stagnating.
The real estate experts at ZKB therefore expect a further increase in asking rents in the canton of Zurich by 4.5 percent for the current year. Across Switzerland, the rent increase is unlikely to be much lower at 4 percent. (saw/sda/awp)
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