Housing shortage is getting worse in Switzerland

Apartments in Zurich's Brunnenhof district, August 22, 2024. Keystone / Michael Buholzer

There are fewer apartments and homes available to rent in Switzerland, according to the latest figures from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).

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As of June 1, there were 51,974 vacant homes, which represents just 1.08% of the country’s apartment and single-family housing stock. The rate has fallen by 0.07 percentage points in one year. This corresponds to 2,791 fewer vacant homes than the previous year.

This is the fourth consecutive drop in the vacancy rate, due to a decrease in the supply of residential properties available for rent, even if this is less significant than in previous years, the FSO said on Tuesday.

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Six of the seven biggest regions reported a decrease in the year-on-year comparison. The biggest drop was in northwest Switzerland (from 1.22% to 1.06%). Only the greater Zurich region recorded a very slight rise (from 0.53% to 0.56%).

At the cantonal level, vacant flats and apartments are rarest in Zug (0.39%). The situation is only slightly better in cantons Obwalden (0.44%) and Geneva (0.46%). In 18 cantons, the rate has decreased over a year, while it has increased in eight others.

Canton Jura appears to be the most favourable to tenants, with the highest rate of vacant housing in Switzerland (2.98%), ahead of cantons Solothurn (2.37%) and Ticino (2.08%).

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The FSO has counted fewer vacant rental properties and more vacant properties for sale. In total, 40,423 rental properties were unoccupied, 8.6% fewer than a year earlier. The decline in the supply of unoccupied rental properties began in 2021 and is still continuing, although it is less pronounced than in previous years (-13.5% in 2022 and -15.9% in 2023).

“We can say that we really have a housing shortage,” Corinne Dubois, an economist and expert at Wüest Partner, told Swiss public radio, RTS. One of the main reasons is the decline in construction in Switzerland.

She noted: “One way to improve the situation would be to stimulate new construction activity, in particular by simplifying the regulations a little, by allowing more floors to be built, extensions, more densification and also by trying to make these procedures a little faster.”

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Another option would be to transform offices into apartments. “We are currently seeing vacancy rates for offices increasing while they are decreasing for residential properties,” said Dubois, who nevertheless specifies that several factors must be considered, such as the location, the type of building or the cost of the necessary work.

“In the short term, we don’t really see any immediate improvement in the situation,” said the economist.

But perhaps there is a glimmer of hope, she added: “We saw a fairly significant increase in permit applications for rental housing in the second quarter of 2024.”

“This does not mean that we are at the end of our troubles, because these permit applications still need to be granted and all these homes built, but we are seeing a new impetus in construction which could perhaps, in the medium term, ease the situation of tenants a little.

Adapted from French by DeepL/sb

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