Housing crisis: vacancy rate in Zurich municipalities

Empty apartments are becoming increasingly scarce. A look at the canton of Zurich shows that almost 60 percent of the municipalities had lower vacant housing stocks in 2022 than in the previous year. The reasons are the same as in many other places: less is being built and new buildings often replace existing residential buildings, as the canton writes on its website.

A look at the map of the canton of Zurich shows that the vacancy rate varies greatly from municipality to municipality. As is well known, the city of Zurich has the lowest vacancy rate. Only 0.07 percent of the apartments are empty in the city. The well-situated municipality of Küsnacht on the right bank of Lake Zurich is striking: at 3.35, the vacancy rate is more than five and a half times the cantonal average (0.7 percent).

Only the municipality of Regensberg has such a high vacancy rate. In the communities neighboring Küsnacht, the vacancy rate ranges between 0.3 and 0.7 percent.

Alexandra Bechter, who is responsible for communications at Küsnacht, explains the high vacancy rate as follows: “During the determination, the vacancy rate was compared with the data on electricity consumption at the plants on Lake Zurich.” Statistical inaccuracies were identified that “point to unused premises that were counted as empty living space, but are not vacant and not available on the market”. The discrepancies have been recognized and will be corrected in the next survey.

In other words, granny flats or second homes used as offices are recorded as empty apartments due to their low power consumption. “Basically, however, it is also observed in the municipality of Küsnacht that little living space is available on the market,” says Bechter.