Swiss rents expected to keep rising owing to low vacancy rates
Hardly any vacant rental flats exist in Switzerland. Although the decline in vacancies has slowed this year, it is likely to continue next year, according to UBS. As a result, rents are expected to continue to rise.
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The Federal Statistical Office announced this week that there were just under 52,000 vacant flats across Switzerland at the beginning of June. This results in a vacancy rate of 1.08%, compared with 1.15% a year ago.
As Swiss bank UBS writes in an analysis on Friday, the vacancy rate is likely to fall further to around 1% in 2025.
+ Housing shortage is getting worse in Switzerland
Even if the momentum has slowed, the number of empty apartments is unlikely to bottom out in the coming quarters, UBS economists are convinced. Immigration has weakened only slightly at a very high level and the trend in building permits does not suggest a significant increase in housing production for the time being.
According to UBS, the increasing housing shortage will continue to drive the rise in rents. The economists estimate that asking rents will be 4% higher at the end of 2024 than in the previous year. And housing will continue to become much more expensive in the years to come. UBS expects rents to rise by 3% in 2025.
Translated from German by DeepL/ts
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