Study: Redistribution of apartments could alleviate shortage
Published: Thursday, Feb 8th 2024, 07:51
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The demand for living space in Switzerland is rising steadily and rents are going up with it. According to experts from Raiffeisen Switzerland, a redistribution of living space could provide a remedy.
If you stay in your apartment, you are safe from rent increases unless the reference interest rate rises. However, new rentals are often "adjusted to local and neighborhood standards". According to Raiffeisen economists, this leads to false incentives for tenants.
"Even after a short rental period, a change to a slightly smaller apartment for a new rent costs more than the previous existing rent," they calculate in a real estate study published on Thursday.
For example, senior citizens are staying in large apartments for longer than they would like, while others remain in "overcrowded apartments", such as shared apartments. Specifically, around a third of tenants have too much living space and around a fifth have too little.
Housing redistribution as an idea
According to the economists, the solution is obvious: the rental space must be better distributed. The only condition: Everyone would have to be content with an apartment size of "number of people in the household plus one".
According to the authors of the study, such a "more efficient allocation of space" could not only solve the problem of overcrowding, but could theoretically "free up" 170,000 four-room apartments. This scenario would free up living space for almost half a million people.
"Better use of the rental apartment park could therefore largely alleviate the worsening housing shortage without having to construct a single new building," say the experts.
However, there is no suggestion in the study as to how a large-scale redistribution could actually be implemented.
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