With Switzerland continuing to grapple with ongoing housing shortages, new data suggest that the homes which are being built are getting smaller and smaller. The number of small apartments being built in the alpine nation has grown significantly in the last few years, especially in major cities.
According to data from the Federal Housing Office (BWO), newly built large apartments are slowly being eclipsed by smaller dwellings. For instance, in 2002 four-room apartments made up 79 percent of all homes built in Switzerland. By 2022, this number had dropped to 49 percent.
At the same time, two-room apartments have seen the reverse, making up 5 percent of new housing supply in 2002, compared to 22 percent in 2022. One-room flats are also becoming increasingly popular, going from 1 percent of new homes in 2002 to 6 percent two decades later. As of 2022, 57 percent of all new homes are three rooms or fewer.
The change is even more pronounced in places like Canton Zurich, where one and two-room homes made up 39 percent of new dwellings in 2022, up from 7 percent in 2002. Speaking to the Tages-Anzeiger, architect and former city planner Patrick Gmür said that "smaller apartments are undoubtedly a trend in cities," with Zug, Lucerne and Bern all reporting a similar phenomenon.
Part of the shift is social, with Gmür noting that families with two children now only make up 3 percent of households in Zurich. By contrast, around two-thirds of people in the city live alone, meaning smaller apartments are needed to satiate demand during the ongoing housing shortage.
However, Gmür added that “money usually plays a role in the size of the apartment." For instance, offering two smaller apartments for rent for 1.750 francs a month is more profitable than offering a larger home for 2.800 francs. Data from Wüest Partner found that a company that lets out a two-room home in Zurich can expect an income of 40 francs per square metre per month, compared to just 35 francs for a five-room home.
This phenomenon has also led some companies and homeowners to demolish existing large homes, replacing them with newer, smaller, more expensive and more numerous apartments.
David Kaufmann, ETH professor of spatial development, added that the focus on smaller apartments forces families out, as "either they can no longer afford to live in the new apartments. Or the new apartments are too small for them." These families are replaced with what the Tages-Anzeiger called DINKS.
An acronym for “double income no kids”, these are often young affluent workers with higher salaries - Kaufmann’s study estimated that households who live in renovated or new apartments in Zurich earn 3.500 francs more a month than the tenants they replace. Faced with smaller more expensive apartments, Kaufmann concluded that families are often forced into smaller homes or out of cities entirely.
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