Real estate Asking rents take a break in October 2025
Asking rents stagnated for once in October. However, a trend reversal is not in sight, according to the report.
13.11.2025, 08:06
13.11.2025, 08:09
SDA
According to a statement issued on Thursday, the Homegate rental index for asking rents, i.e. the residential rents advertised in real estate ads, remained unchanged compared to the previous month at 131.6 points. Compared to October 2024, they are therefore 3.1 percent higher across Switzerland.
The index is compiled by the real estate marketplace Homegate in collaboration with Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB). Thanks to the comprehensive data history, the long-term development can also be tracked.
For example, asking rents have risen by 15.6 percent in the last ten years (since October 2015), compared to 27.2 percent 15 years ago. And this is only the national average; individual cantons and cities have seen significantly higher inflation, according to the press release.
Canton Schwyz at the top
Meanwhile, the latest slowdown, including the stagnation in October, is primarily attributed to the cooling economic situation. On the one hand, reduced wage growth is affecting the ability of new tenants to pay. On the other hand, net immigration has been curbed by the slowdown in job growth since the beginning of the year. Accordingly, a decelerated increase in rents can be observed in all parts of the country and across all settlement types.
In terms of the cantons, according to the data, asking rents rose relatively sharply in Schwyz (+3.4%) and Graubünden (+2.1%) in October. Meanwhile, they fell in Obwalden (-1.8%) and Ticino (-1.5%) in particular. As far as the cities are concerned, Lucerne (+1.9%) recorded the largest increase compared to the previous month, while the weakest development was in Lugano (-2.2%).
Only slight easing expected
Real estate experts are "cautiously optimistic" about future developments. In the near future, the supply of newly built apartments is likely to pick up again somewhat, they say. This is also shown by the ZKB's analysis: with around 47,000 new apartments across Switzerland, an increase of around 17% is expected for 2026.
However, this will not yet lead to a major easing of the rental apartment market, although the increase in asking rents is likely to be significantly lower than in previous years, according to the report. The ZKB expects growth of 2.5 percent across Switzerland for 2025 as a whole and 1.5 percent for 2026.
