Housing cooperatives are becoming increasingly popular according to study
Published: Wednesday, Jan 17th 2024, 11:50
Updated At: Thursday, Jan 18th 2024, 00:59
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The number of cooperatives in Switzerland has fallen slightly in recent years. However, one sub-sector is experiencing particular growth - residential construction. This is the conclusion of a study published on Wednesday by the cooperative association Idée Coopérative.
This legal form, in which members pursue common economic interests and put people before profit, accounts for only a fraction of all companies in Germany. And the number is also declining, falling by 3.6 percent in the last four years. This means that the approximately 8,200 cooperatives entered in the commercial register recently accounted for around 1 percent of all companies in Switzerland.
However, the ten largest cooperatives, including Coop, Migros, Raiffeisen, Reka and Mobiliar, employed 4 percent of all people in gainful employment in Switzerland in 2022 and contributed 11 percent to economic output, the gross domestic product (GDP), according to the study.
According to the study, this form is still particularly prevalent in the historically organized cooperative sectors such as retail, finance, energy and agriculture.
Housing cooperatives popular
As the study shows, more and more cooperatives are moving to cities - the current share of just over 40% has increased by 17 percentage points since 2019. 71% of cooperatives founded in the last five years have their headquarters in cities.
Half of the new housing developments in the city are housing cooperatives. Their share there is just under 57 percent. Across Switzerland, the proportion of housing cooperatives is a good 45 percent. This is the only category to have increased by almost 4 percentage points in recent years.
By comparison, the second and third largest groups are the energy industry with a share of less than 8 percent and agriculture with a share of just over 7 percent.
Joint self-help as a success factor
"Cooperatives are on hand when there are challenges on the market, such as a housing shortage," said study director Gerhard Fehr at the presentation of the study to the media. For this reason, housing cooperatives are a popular way of procuring living space.
Henrik Schoop, Managing Director of the Cooperative Association, added: "Cooperatives pursue the idea of joint self-help: that is the success factor for housing cooperatives."
20 to 30 years ago, it was still frowned upon to live in a cooperative. "Today, people see the advantage of democratization and fair prices." This is because rent in a housing cooperative is up to 20 percent lower than the usual market price.
Increased sales
The cooperatives' turnover has increased overall since 2020. Around 45% of cooperatives stated that they had grown. Only around 11% stated that their revenue had decreased. The rest have remained stable.
In the current survey, most cooperatives (63%) had a turnover of up to CHF 1 million. Over a third have a turnover of between CHF 1 million and CHF 50 million. Meanwhile, large cooperatives with a turnover of 50 million or more account for just under 2%.
The representative survey for the "Genossenschaftsmonitor 2024" was conducted by FehrAdvice & Partners in fall 2023 with almost 400 cooperatives. The first Cooperative Monitor was published in 2020. The industry association Idée Coopérative was founded as a cooperative in the same year and has 133 members.
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