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Swiss are building homes in the suburbs and towns

Geneva: a city with too few building cranes (winter 2010)

Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The number of newly-built homes in Switzerland has increased by more than 12 percent since the start of the year, compared to 2009, but the figure hides major discrepancies between areas. Overall, in the second quarter of the year the number of new homes increased in villages with no more than 2,000 residents and in small towns of 5,000-10,000 people. But the five main cities in Switzerland showed a 20 percent drop in completed new homes, with Lausanne the only one showing growth: Basel, Bern, Geneva and Zurich all saw a decline.

Houses under construction up, but building permits down

A small glimmer of hope for the tight housing market in Swiss cities is that the number of new homes under construction at the end of June 2010 was more than 8 percent higher than a year earlier. For the country as a whole, federal statistics show 9,750 new homes being built during the second quarter of the year, a 2.5 percent increase over the same period in 2009.

The boost looks short-lived, however, with the number of new building permits down by 2 percent at the end of June for the country as a whole, but down 17 percent in the five main cities. Basel and Lausanne areas show an increase in permits, while the number is down sharply in Geneva, Zurich and Bern.