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Zurich is the most expensive place to buy a home in Switzerland

The Local
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Zurich is the most expensive place to buy a home in Switzerland
Zurich. Photo: Jan Geerk/Swiss Tourism

Zurich residents will already know that the Swiss city is an expensive place.

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Last year it was deemed the priciest place in Switzerland in which to rent a home, with rents more than twice the price of a similar-sized apartment in La-Chaux-de-Fonds, the cheapest place in the country.
 
And earlier this year it retained its dubious honour of being the most expensive city in Europe – and third in the world – as judged by The Economist Intelligence Unit.
 
Now a new study has found that the Swiss-German city is also the most expensive place in Switzerland to buy a home.
 
 
The research, by online comparison site comparis.ch and Swiss federal technology institute ETH Zurich, analyzed 1.5 million sales adverts from the end of 2005 to June 2017. 
 
It found that as of July 1st the median price on the real estate market in Zurich was 12,250 francs per square metre. 
 
That’s significantly more than the second most expensive place, Maloja in the canton of Graubünden, which comes in at 11,500 francs/m2.
 
Geneva came in sixth place at 11,000 francs/m2, with Zug in seventh (10,250 francs/m2) and Lausanne in ninth (9,500 francs/m2).
 
 
However in its long-term analysis the study found that it’s in the central Swiss city of Lucerne where housing prices have increased the most, up a whopping 82 percent since 2007. 
 
Lakeside locations were particularly in demand, resulting in sharp price increases not only over the past ten years but particularly in the past year – for example, prices in Lucerne have shot up by 11 percent in the past year alone. 
 
Horgen, on the south bank of Lake Zurich, has seen prices increase by 80 percent over the past decade, making it the fourth most expensive place in the country. 
 
Sursee, on Lake Lucerne, and Uster, on the Greifensee in the canton of Zurich, are also popular spots, with housing prices shooting up by 69 percent since 2007. 
 
 
Schaffhausen, in northeastern Switzerland, has seen the largest rises in the past year, with prices increasing by 25 percent over 12 months. 
 
At the other end of the scale, purchase prices in Entremont in the Valais have dropped by 19 percent in the past year. Nevertheless it still remains the tenth most expensive place in the country to buy an apartment. 
 
Raron, near Brig in the Valais, has the cheapest prices in the country, at 2,750 francs/m2.
 
 
The study also compared the price of houses with 5-6 rooms, and found Höfe on Lake Zurich in the canton of Schwyz to be the most expensive place, costing an average of 2.45 million francs.
 
Zurich came in at 1.6 million, and Geneva at 1.5 million.
 
That compares with the town of Porrentruy in the Jura, where a 5-6 room house will only set you back 350,000. 

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