A new report from Wüest Partner has revealed the cheapest and most expensive places to buy a house in Switzerland. Following the news that fewer and fewer people in the alpine nation can afford mortgages, the data from the real estate firm showed that most Swiss cities and cantons remain financially off-limits for prospective home buyers.
According to the findings, the average cost of a single-family house in Switzerland - defined as a 5 to 5,5-room home - stands at 1,13 million Swiss francs. Considering the average salary and income of couples in the alpine nation, the study found that roughly only 20 percent of Swiss households can afford to buy property at the moment.
The situation is even more severe when looking at individual Swiss cantons, with an average house costing 2,55 million francs in Canton Zug. This means that less than 5 percent of households in the region with two working adults could consider buying property. House prices in Geneva (2,17 million francs), Schwyz (1,71), Basel-Stadt (1,67), Zurich (1,56), Nidwalden (1,5) and Vaud (1,4) were all found to be unaffordable for more than 95 percent of local households.
By contrast, the cheapest homes for sale in Switzerland can be found in Jura, with single-family homes costing an average of 630.000 francs. This means that around 68 percent of working couples in Switzerland's youngest canton can afford a home. Glarus was the only other canton where more than half of households could afford a property, with an average price of 740.000 francs.
For 2024, the Genevan district of Cologny was found to have the most expensive single-family homes to buy in Switzerland. There, the average cost of a 5,5-room home came in at a whopping 4,294 million francs. This means that a couple would have to have a combined income of more than 400.000 francs a year and a down payment in the millions to even contemplate a mortgage.
The home of the Lindt, Kilchberg Canton Zurich, came second with average home costs of 3,301 million francs. Küsnacht (Zurich, 3,263 million), Vandœuvres (Geneva, 3,243) and Rüschlikon (Zurich, 3,009) rounded out the top five. More generally, house prices were found to be highest around Lake Zurich and Geneva, and in the Engandine valley in the mountains.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the majority of the cheapest places to buy homes in Switzerland were in Canton Jura. The small town of Beurnevésin was the cheapest, with an average home price of 362.000 francs.
This means that for the price of one home in Cologny, you could buy more than 11 equivalent houses in Beurnevésin. Nevertheless, to afford a place of your own in the village, Wüest Partner calculated that an individual would still have to earn 60.000 francs a year and have a down payment of 100.000 francs.
In all, here are the most expensive places to buy a house in Switzerland (in millions of francs):
By contrast, here are the cheapest places to buy property in the alpine nation:
For more information about the study, and to see how much it costs to buy a home in your area, check out this round-up from the Tages-Anzeiger (paid article).