20 Minutes. After reaching a historical low in the third quarter of 2016, rates started rising in the fourth quarter. Rate increases hit mortgage tenors of five and ten years. Compared to Q3, fixed mortgage rates on loans of ten years went up an average 0.2% to 1.62% according to price comparison website Comparis.ch. Five […]
Swiss regulator does not want to loosen mortgage restrictions
24 Heures. Swiss financial markets regulator Finma is not planning to loosen mortgage lending directives, according to its director Thomas Bauer, after the bank Raiffeisen expressed a desire for looser lending rules. In an interview with Zentralschweiz am Sonntag, Bauer said that this could allow certain households to get mortgages that they wouldn’t be able to service […]
Swiss rents drop, substantially in the Lake Geneva region
Tribune de Genève. Rents have dropped across Switzerland, declining substantially in the Lake Geneva region, according the the property consulting firm Wüest Partner. According to the firm, Swiss rents in the second quarter of 2016 were 1.6% lower than the same quarter in 2015. Geneva saw rents drop by 8.3% over the same period, while the […]
Earthquake shakes houses in Switzerland
Tribune de Genève. According to Tribune de Genève, at 16:44 yesterday, an earthquake measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale, shook Valais. The quake’s centre was 6km north of the town of Sierre at a depth of 8.3 kilometres. The quake, which lasted several seconds was felt throughout central Valais, a canton known for famous resorts such as […]
Swiss fact: Switzerland has one of the world’s lowest home ownership rates
In Romania, 96.1% of the population owns the home they live in. In Switzerland the percentage is 37.4%. Home ownership rates vary significantly across the country. The lowest rates are found in the canton of Basel-City (16.0%) and Geneva (18.3%). Relative to these two cities, home ownership abounds in Valais (57.2%), the highest. Vaud (31.4%), Zurich […]
Vancouver tops list of cities at risk of housing bubble. Zurich 9, Geneva 11.
Brought to you by Investec Switzerland. Natalie Obiko Pearson and Katia Dmitrieva, writing for Bloomberg, look at the UBS 2016 Global Real Estate Bubble Index report. While Switzerland’s two main cities, Zurich and Geneva, are not described as having “Bubble risk” they are in the next category: “Overvalued”. Vancouver, London and Stockholm rank as the […]
Swiss home vacancy rate climbs to 15-year high
Switzerland has around 4.4 million homes. In 2000, 52,608 (1.49%) of them were vacant. By 2003, this number had dropped to 33,039, a vacancy rate of 0.91%. After fluctuating between this level and 1.07%, the rate started to climb in 2014 to its current rate of 1.30%, its highest level in 15 years. Before home hunters […]
Despite the exposure to seismic risk, few Swiss homeowners take out earthquake insurance
According to reinsurer, Swiss Re, over three quarters of private buildings in Switzerland have no earthquake coverage. Because earthquakes are rare and are quickly forgotten, public risk perception is low. Even Switzerland, with its well developed insurance culture is no exception. Swiss Re describes Switzerland as a country with a medium seismic hazard. The strongest […]
Earthquake risk in Switzerland is real says geologist
24 Heures. After the tragic earthquake in Italy, some are wondering if something similar could happen in Switzerland. Speaking to the newspaper 24 Heures, geologist Raphaël Mayoraz, says “People tend to forget, but our country has already experienced earthquakes of 6 or more.” The Swiss Seismological Service (SED) at ETH Zurich completed ten years of […]
UBS says Switzerland still at risk of real-estate bubble
Brought to you by Investec Switzerland. Risks to the Swiss property market remained elevated in the second quarter of 2016, with rock-bottom interest rates propping up demand for residential assets to be rented out for investment purposes. Still, UBS Group AG’s index experienced a “slight” decrease in the period, according to economists Matthias Holzhey and […]
