The forest fire was near the autoroute, next to the 114m Pisse-de-Vache waterfall
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The high winds that have been blowing in canton Valais for the past four days provoked a forest fire in Vernayaz/Miéville Saturday 28 April at 14:40.
Police in Valais say the fire is under control and no homes were touched by it. It started when high winds pushed over a tree and it fell onto an electric power line. Several neighbours noticed the flames and contacted the fire department.
The area, known as Le Bra, was too difficult to reach with vehicles so two helicopters were called in to douse the flames.
About 1,000m2 were burned.
Swiss rental market seeing impact of economic slowdown
Tight market for homes keeping prices up
Trendy city centre areas, such as that around the new Prime Tower in Zurich, are able to demand top prices for housing (photo, Prime Tower)
GENEVA / ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – New apartment leases in urban Switzerland have risen 10 percent a year in the past five years but this could be coming to an end, according to property consultants Wuest & Partner in their most recent quarterly assessment of the Swiss real estate market, but not before a new increase this year. Home prices remain high, with no sign of the very tight market easing, according to “Property market Switzerland 2012/1″.
The report notes that typical transaction prices for standard single-family houses today range from CHF500-700,000 in non-urban areas and CHF1.5 million to CHF2.5 million in Zurich, Geneva and Switzerland’s high-end tourism destinations.
The company has also just published its second annual “Immo-Monitoring”, an in-depth report on the market that shows a dangerous level of overheating in real estate in 102 communes, more than half of them in French-speaking Switzerland, reports news agency ats. Geneva is, to no one’s surprise, one of the hot spots: the price of single-family homes has risen 136 percent in 10 years (2001-2011) while the price of owner-occupied (PPE) apartments has risen 200 percent.
Overheating does not necessarily equate bubble, the consultancy’s Robert Weinert told ats. Investors have few alternatives and the 78,000 newcomers to the Geneva area in 2011 kept demand high.
The report parallels one published by Credit Suisse in February, which expect real estate prices, even high ones, to remain relatively stable: the elements needed to push prices down are not there, with immigration remaining high, confidence in markets high ad interest rates low.
“The effect of interest rates on the housing market is causing price distortions which are increasingly
growing at two distinct rates. Whilst one area experiences a run on condominiums like it
has never seen before, restricting the supply and so causing a worrying increase in property
prices, other areas face problems in placing rental properties, in particular new-build and upscale
properties, and only find relief in the persistently high rate of immigration. The trend is exacerbated
by the fact that the expansion of supply, driven by the increasing focus of institutional
investors on property, is increasingly focused on rented housing. As things currently stand, this
trend is likely to continue throughout the year as fundamental data remain unchanged. The result
will be increasing vacancy rates in the rental sector and continued price rises in residential
property offered for sale. Thanks to the low share of speculative real estate sales though, property
prices are not increasing as a result of a speculative price bubble, but rather as a result of a
overheating of demand. Falling demand and sharp rises in interest rates are much-feared triggers
that could bring about a possible price correction, though not in 2012.”
Three out of five Swiss residences are single-family homes
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss government has counted the country’s homes, officially, for the first time. The new Federal Register of Buildings and Dwellings statistics show that at the end of December 2009 the number of buildings with residential use in Switzerland was 1,623,000 with a total of 4,008,400 dwellings.
Switzerland has a population of 7.4 million, giving it on average 1.85 persons per dwelling.
More houses than apartments, and homes are getting larger
Three out of five dwellings are individual homes, surprisingly almost as many in urban areas, 57 percent, as in rural, 59 percent. But houses supply only 25 percent of lodgings. Three- and four-room apartments account for 53 percent of all residential living space.
The five largest cities vary, with Zurich having not quite twice as many individual houses as apartments, while Geneva has three times as many houses.
Source: Swiss Federal Register of Buildings and Dwellings, 2009 figures. Left to right: total buildings, total housing, individual homes, multi-dwelling housing
The study does not look at the number of square metres of dwellings but in terms of the number of rooms, apartments have been getting larger.
More than 60 percent of apartments built after 1990 have four or five rooms, with a steady fall in the number of three-room apartments. Geneva is the only city to have more five- and six-room apartments (combined) figure than four-room ones.
Number of dwellings, by the number of rooms, Swiss-wide, 2009 (source: Federal Statistical Office)
The figures for the first housing tally are limited, based on figures gathered on the basis of the 2000 census, but the register will be expanded in coming years.
It is part of the new federal approach to gathering annual statistics for a more comprehensive government data base in the place of a census every 10 years.
Solar panels are being tested in a solar park on top of the EPFL polytechnic institute in Lausanne, by Romande Energie, one part of a Swiss push to develop solar power
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Solar panels have the potential to supply far more home heating, including heating water, than previously thought, a new Swiss study shows. “Home heating that relies entirely on renewable energy, leaving untouched the limited biomass potential, is on our doorstep,” an Energy Office statement on the study notes.
Homes in rural areas could have 75 percent of their home’s heating requirements taken care of by solar panels, using wood to make up the difference, the study mandated by the Swiss Federal Energy Office concludes, based on a review of 1,000 homes in the Fribourg area.
Solar energy could supply 13 percent of home heating needs in urban areas, based on a study of some 200 homes in Zurich. The difference is due in large part to the tendency to have several floors in city buildings, rarely the case in rural areas.
Two types of houses were taken into consideration:
- the first a standard home today, eight litres with a 104kWh/m2 consumption = 8 litres heating oil for ambient temperature and 24kWh for hot water
- the second in line with recent energy standards, three litres, with a consumption of 54 kWh/m2 = 3 litres heating oil, 24 kWh for hot water.
Each of these was studied with two options, either a 100-litre thermal accumulator/m2 of solar panel or an optimized thermal accumulator, which will soon be available, thanks to technological progress.
WWF session on building and renovation: how to respect the environment, maintain quality of life
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) - WWF Switzerland is hosting a day-long seminar 10 September to show home-owners or those aspiring to buy, how to build and renovate with respect for the environment, while maintaining good quality of life. The programme, at the WWF training centre in Lausanne, will consider much more than just energy use, say the organizers. Concrete solutions will be reviewed after looking at options for materials, insulation, heating systems, water use, indoor fittings and landscaping.
Details and registration on the WWF web site
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Two shelters for abused men are opening this week in German-speaking Switzerland, one near Aarau and the other near Zurich. The shelters are not connected in any way but both are primarily designed for men who have lost their homes and families after separations, says swissinfo, which carries a feature on the two new shelters. It focuses on the little-discussed problem of violence towards men, at home.
The US Army Corp of Engineers lost a court case brought by six plaintiffs over damages from 2005 hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The judge ruled that the Army Corps for 40 years had not maintained a shipping channel between the city and the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in widespread flooding in two areas, Lower 9th Ward and St Bernard Parish. Five of the six were awarded damages from $100,000 to $350,000, but the ruling will now mean compensation for hundreds of others in the two districts.
Links to other sites: CNN, Times-Picayune, New Orleans
Some 700,000 homes along the coastline in Australia are at risk from erosion as sea levels rise: the government says it expects the level to rise by one meter within 40 years, thanks to global warming. Some homes have already lost substantial amounts of land around them, from storms but also higher water levels, reports Reuters.
Home, sweet (green?) home, Carouge, Geneva
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Homeowners grabbed at the chance to get energy certificates at a bargain rate, the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) says, with 15,000 energy certificates sold in only three weeks following the announcement that a certificate and annexed expert report would cost only CHF200 instead of the usual CHF1,200. The cantonal building energy certificate (CECB) establishes the energy efficiency of a building and is useful as a guide to current and future energy use.
Nyon, Vaud, a town of charming homes and businesses
Lake Geneva region (GenevaLunch) - Police in Vaud, presenting the annual cantonal crime statistics, said that residential break-ins rose 22 percent in 2008, boosting the overall rate of crime, up 8.3 percent. In the past 10 years the rate of criminal activity has risen 34 percent, while the population in Vaud has gone up by only 12 percent.
In total, the police registered 38,638 crimes in 2008, and some 4,340 people were charged with crimes (drugs not included).
Police are particularly “preoccupied” by the increase in violent crimes and the fact that 58 percent of crimes are committed by people under the age of 25.
Map, Vaud cantonal police, rate of break-ins by commune, 2008 (per population of 1,000)
Police Cantonal Vaud (click on image to view larger)
Lake Geneva region (GenevaLunch) – Police in Vaud and Geneva are warning that there has been a rapid increase in break-ins of homes in the region in recent weeks.
