immo!nvest – Die Plattform für Standorte und Immobilien

Tag: Immobilienbarometer

  • Zurich home prices remain on an upward trend

    Zurich home prices remain on an upward trend

    Favourable financing costs are continuing to drive demand for residential property in the canton of Zurich, Zürcher Kantonalbank reports in a press release. According to its surveys for the ZHK Real Estate Barometer in Q2 2025, prices for owner-occupied homes in the canton of Zurich were 4 per cent higher in the quarter under review than in the same quarter of the previous year. At the same time, prices in Zurich’s agglomeration municipalities and the city of Winterthur (Regio region) rose even more sharply by 4.3 per cent. The experts at ZKB expect the trend towards rising prices to continue over the next two years due to the ongoing excess demand.

    The cantonal bank’s experts have identified “signs of an easing” in asking rents in the first half of 2025. After growth rates of over 10 per cent in some cases in the last two years, they are currently observing an increase of less than 4 per cent. However, even with declining population growth, current construction activity is not sufficient to reduce the excess demand.

    However, tenants in the canton of Zurich could benefit more than average compared to the rest of Switzerland from the latest reduction in the base rate in June. Following a fall in the reference interest rate to 1.5 per cent in March, the experts at ZKB expect a further reduction to 1.25 per cent by the end of the year. This means that around 70 per cent of rental households in the canton of Zurich could request a rent reduction. Across Switzerland, this applies to 46 per cent of rental households.

  • Zurich homes fetch record prices

    Zurich homes fetch record prices

    "Zurich's home prices are skyrocketing," writes the Zürcher Kantonalbank ( ZKB ) in its real estate barometer for the fourth quarter of 2021 . According to the analysts at ZKB, prices for residential property in the Canton of Zurich rose by an average of 9.3 percent year-on-year to new record levels. The analysts account for the highest increase of 11.3 percent for residential property in the lake communities and the city of Zurich.

    Rents also achieved “the highest overall annual growth since the end of 2014” in the reporting period, the barometer continues. The analysts attribute this to the currently falling figures for vacant apartments “in combination with robust immigration”. In the city of Zurich, on the other hand, “the centers lost their attractiveness during the pandemic”. Here, rents increased by only 0.5 percent year-on-year.

    The analysts also cite the long approval period for the construction of apartment buildings as a background for the developments. The approval period for major projects has almost doubled since 2001 from 183 to 324 days. "High-density construction often generates areas of friction and often leads to lengthy appeals and delays," the analysts explain. As a result, the implementation of many major projects is no longer decided in the Zurich building department, but in court. Ultimately, however, "in most cases a solution" can be found.

  • Construction activity is declining

    Construction activity is declining

    According to the real estate barometer of Zürcher Kantonalbank ( ZKB ) for the second quarter of 2021, the number of projected apartments in planning applications has decreased by 23 percent compared to 2018. According to the ZKB analysts, this is related to high vacancy rates in peripheral regions, to which investors would have reacted accordingly. In urban centers with low vacancy rates, construction activity is picking up again in some cases, according to the barometer.

    Lausanne and Zurich are cited as examples. In the cantons of Geneva and Basel-Stadt, however, the analysts have observed a decline in construction activity. They attribute this to the high regulatory hurdles typical of urban areas and the scarcity of building land. Overall, however, the analysts state that “new apartments are increasingly being planned where the demand for living space is high”.

    In the canton of Zurich, the desire for one's own four walls, which has been intensified by the pandemic, is further explained in the barometer. According to him, house prices have increased by 5.5 percent over the previous year and 2.9 percent over the previous quarter. At the same time, the analysts see a shrinking of the offers advertised on real estate portals. They explain this with the fact that many properties are marketed by regional brokers or are already sold before construction begins. For this year and the following, the analysts are assuming excess demand in the residential property market across Switzerland.