Due to high rents, an increasing number of residents move from expensive Swiss hubs like Zurich, Geneva, and Basel, and relocating to ‘cheaper’ neighbouring cantons. Meanwhile, newly arrived foreigners fill the gap.
This trend is revealed by two recent studies.
One, an analysis by the real estate consultancy Wüest Partner, shows that an increasing number of people living in major urban cantons like Zurich, Geneva, and Basel, where rents are among highest in Switzerland, are relocating to ‘cheaper’ neighbouring cantons,
For instance, thousands leave each year Switzerland’s most expensive canton, Zurich, for cheaper nearby places like Aargau, Schaffhusen, and Thurgau, while those from Geneva relocate in droves to Vaud, Valais, and Fribourg.
However, the thousands of people moving away are not helping to ease the situation on the housing market either.
For example, while Zurich loses 3,500 residents to other cantons every year, almost 19,000 net newcomers from abroad flow into the canton in the same period. Therefore, the demand for living space is by no means collapsing; it is being fuelled by foreign citizens.
The same applies to Geneva, where 1,400 locals leave the canton every year, while 10,300 arrive from abroad.
And the same pattern is observed in canton of Zug, where rents tend to be even higher than in Zurich.
Each year, 40 local residents have moved to other cantons, while an average of 1,041 foreign nationals settled in.
Given that arrivals from abroad outnumber those who leave, the demand for housing or the rents in these cantons shows no signs of easing.
READ MORE: Which parts of Switzerland have more foreign residents than Swiss?
A similar trend has emerged in another recent study, conducted by the UBS Bank.
It points to Zurich, Basel-City, Geneva, and Vaud – predominantly urban regions characterised by high rents and a limited housing supply – as cantons that are experiencing a net loss of population to neighbouring regions.
At the same time, however, they “serve as magnets for many arrivals from abroad” as well as “drawing in numerous households from other cantons,” UBS reported.
And this one finding is virtually the same as the one that emerged from the Wüest Partner analysis: regions in the cantons of Aargau, Schaffhausen, and Thurgau have recently recorded high positive internal migration figures relative to the canton of Zurich.
In conclusion, residents of large, industrial cantons, “can hardly expect rents to fall,” the UBS reports.
That’s because “people moving from abroad are likely to continue gravitating primarily toward urban centres and metropolitan areas with attractive labour markets,” according to the bank.
