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It’s an impressive number: 78,832 vacant apartments were recorded in Switzerland on June 1. That’s 1.72 percent of all apartments in the country, including single-family homes. Compared to the previous year, 3,449 more apartments were vacant. This corresponds to an increase of 4.6 percent. This means that the increase in the vacancy rate that began more than ten years ago remains unchanged. This is evident in the census of vacant apartments of the Federal Statistical Office (BfS).
The reasons for the increase: Immigration fell dramatically during and immediately after the shutdown. The migratory balance, that is, the difference between immigration and emigration, fell by 25 percent in the second quarter of 2020 compared to the same quarter of the previous year, as a Credit Suisse study shows. And that also means that even more apartments will remain empty.
Relocations are postponed
Which also leads to bigger vacancies in the Corona crisis: Job fears, falling incomes and rising savings behavior are putting off some startup startups.
The number of standing apartments increased in five of the seven main regions. The largest increases were recorded in Ticino and the Lake Geneva region (+0.42 and +0.21 percent, respectively). Only the main regions of Eastern Switzerland and the Central Plateau registered a slight decrease in the vacancy rate compared to the previous year (–0.08 and –0.02 percent), as the BfS continues.
Apartments are rare in Geneva
In a canton comparison, the canton of Solothurn had the highest vacancy rate in Switzerland (3.22 percent), as it did last year. It was also the only canton above the three percent mark. The lowest figure was recorded in the canton of Geneva (0.49 percent). In the cantons of Zug (0.70 per cent), Zurich (0.91 per cent), Obwalden (0.92 per cent) and Basel-Stadt (0.96 per cent), the vacancy rate remained below one percent.
Compared to the previous year, the vacancy rate increased for all apartment sizes except 5-bedroom apartments. The supply of one and two-bedroom apartments was the one that expanded the most (+14.5 percent and +7.0 percent, respectively). Only the number of five-room apartments decreased slightly compared to the previous year (–0.5%). Most of the vacant apartments have three (26,070 apartments) or four bedrooms (22,665 apartments).
