Buying a home in Switzerland became more expensive again in the third quarter of 2026, according to the latest Raiffeisen Transaction Price Index. Single-family homes rose 2.0% in value over the three months from July to September, while owner-occupied flats gained 1.7%. The data suggest that the market has kept its momentum through a period in which borrowing has become slightly more expensive, and that buyers are still willing to pay more each quarter.
Measured over twelve months, flats have climbed faster than houses. Apartment prices stood 5.9% above their level a year earlier, compared with an increase of 3.6% for single-family homes. Raiffeisen bases the index on prices actually paid in sales of owner-occupied property, using its own data together with figures from the Swiss Real Estate Datapool, so the numbers reflect completed deals rather than asking prices advertised by sellers. That makes the index a useful measure of what buyers are really prepared to pay.
The rise comes even though fixed-rate mortgages have become somewhat dearer in recent months. Fredy Hasenmaile, chief economist at Raiffeisen, said the small increase in borrowing costs is not strong enough to turn the market around, because the number of homes on offer remains limited. “The supply of residential properties remains too scarce for that,” he said. In his reading, scarcity rather than financing conditions is setting the pace for now.
Regional differences are wide. Among single-family homes, Zurich posted the largest annual gain at 4.8%, ahead of Western Switzerland at 4.6%. Eastern Switzerland, at 3.5%, and Southern Switzerland, at 3.3%, recorded smaller increases. The flat market told a different story: Southern Switzerland led with a rise of 7.4%, while prices in the Lake Geneva region edged up by only 0.4% over the same period. The gap between the two shows how far local conditions can pull the national figures in different directions.
The kind of municipality also made a clear difference. Single-family homes in central municipalities, the urban cores of the country’s agglomerations, were 5.2% more expensive than a year before. Flats in tourist municipalities rose 7.9%, far outpacing flats in central municipalities, which gained just 1.6%. For buyers, the figures offer little comfort: with too few properties coming to market and mortgage rates rising only gently, Raiffeisen sees no immediate force strong enough to halt the upward trend.
