Many homeowners stay in their homes for as long as possible. This has consequences: 70 percent of the houses are underoccupied, in 15 percent of them only one person lives.
The photographer Reto Schlatter dedicated a “photographic research” to the single-family house, which was published in the book “(K)ein Idyll – The single-family house: a form of living in a cul-de-sac”.
“A house for life” is the name of the new study by the Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB), which deals with single-family houses in the canton of Zurich. And for many owners, their house is exactly that: the house for life! That’s why they stay in it even after the children have moved out or a spouse has died.
Often only one person in the house
The phenomenon is very widespread in the canton of Zurich, as the ZKB analysis shows: More than 70 percent of single-family homes are “underoccupied”. However, the definition of this under-occupancy is relatively strict: it is given when the number of rooms is more than 1 more than the number of people. A 6-room house is well occupied with 5 people, with 4 or fewer people it is considered underoccupied.
Incidentally, 15 percent of single-family homes are now only occupied by one person. Not surprisingly, 62 percent of this is a person over the age of 65. The dream of a house for life is also culturally conditioned and not as pronounced elsewhere as it is here, as Ursina Kubli, Head of Research at ZKB, says: «In the UK, residential property is sold much more frequently; you look there for the right house or the right apartment for every phase of life.”
However, it is also understandable if the emotional attachment to one’s own house is strong. You may have built it yourself, the family lived in it together, the children grew up here. So many people accept that life in a big house is often not very age-appropriate: looking after the house and garden is often just as difficult as climbing the stairs. Ursina Kubli therefore recommends starting as early as possible with planning for living in old age: “Many people miss the time to make a change and ultimately no longer have the strength to do so.”
The two poles: Erlenbach and Zurich
There are very big differences within the canton when it comes to the under-occupancy of single-family houses: in 14 municipalities, over 80 percent of the single-family houses are under-occupied. Erlenbach is the leader with 83.2 percent; Other Gold Coast communities such as Zollikon, Zumikon, Küsnacht and Herrliberg are also in the “80s club”. At the lower end of the list is the city of Zurich, where, according to the study, only 58.4 percent of single-family homes are underoccupied.
There are explanations for both: The single-family houses in the Gold Coast communities are generally larger, so many are already “underoccupied” even if the whole family still lives in them. 23 percent of all single-family homes in the district of Miles have 7 or more rooms. The cantonal average is just over half, at 12 percent.
The fact that significantly fewer single-family homes are underoccupied in the city of Zurich can be partly explained by the fact that around 30 percent of them belong to cooperatives, some of which have very strict occupancy regulations. If the children have moved out, the parents have to move to a smaller apartment after a transitional period. A further 20 percent of the single-family homes in the city of Zurich are also rented. Due to the high rents, these properties are changed more frequently and, above all, more quickly.
The cooperative model offers an advantage when moving to a smaller apartment that should not be underestimated: it can usually be changed within the cooperative. This means that the surroundings and the neighbors remain largely the same. Because of the occupancy regulations, only 25 percent of the cooperative single-family homes are underoccupied. Kubli also suspects that these were counted in a transitional phase – between the children moving out and the parents’ moving out, which was just as inevitable.
For people who do not belong to a cooperative, the search for an alternative to owning a house is often very time-consuming – especially in those communities in which the housing market has dried up extremely or only very expensive properties can be found. Due to the low interest rates and possible repayments, owning a house has often become so cheap that the small new apartment in the area can be more expensive.
In old age back to the city?
If a change does take place, there are very specific preferences: the owners of single-family homes are demanding and move much more often to new apartments with a high level of comfort than condominium owners or tenants do. However, the under-occupancy rate does not automatically fall wherever there is a lot of construction going on. The Glattpark in Opfikon, for example, did not lead to single-family homeowners from the area moving there; the gap between the idyllic individual houses and the new blocks of flats is simply too great.
Anyone who moves when they are old usually stays close to their previous place of residence – usually at a maximum distance of five kilometers. The big exception is that former city dwellers move back to the city when their children have moved out.
ZKB is a bank, which is why it does not limit itself to analyses, but also gives advice to customers. In this case, she advises – apart from early planning – to sell as a matter of principle. The market for single-family houses has dried up because almost no new ones are being built anymore and the old houses have not come onto the market for a long time.
Anyone who wants to sell can therefore ask high prices and set conditions – no longer just in Zurich or on the shores of the lake, but increasingly also in remote areas. The prices for home ownership were already rising before Corona, but the pandemic has made the situation even worse. Last year, for example, home prices in the canton of Zurich rose by 9.3 percent. In addition, the study goes on to say that the sale is also doing something for the environment: in doing so, the area and energy consumption per person is significantly reduced.
In 2021, almost the same number of single-family homes demolished as newly built
sho. Increasing demand does not always necessarily lead to a higher supply. This can be seen in the example of a single-family house. In particular, the detached home with a plot is one of the biggest dreams of Mr. and Mrs. Swiss – in the Corona pandemic more than ever.
However, it is not only the rising prices that stand in the way of fulfillment. In the future, the number of SFHs may even decrease. Since 2016, between 300 and 400 of these have been demolished in the canton of Zurich every year. In the same period of time, the number of newly built single family homes fell and in 2021 was only slightly higher than that of demolitions. The total number of SFHs may already fall this year.
The ZKB took a closer look at the development on the basis of the building floor plans from the official survey. the Results show that most single family homes are demolished on the two lake shores – and in the city of Zurich. This is mainly due to building cooperatives that have replaced entire terraced housing estates with multi-family houses.
Although overall less than half of the single family homes are free-standing, three out of four demolitions relate to this category. The largest part will then be replaced by an apartment building. The reason: Replacing an EFH with a change is easier and more flexible. One half of an assembled semi-detached house cannot easily be demolished. You have to come to an agreement with your neighbors, also if you want to reuse the whole property. This hurdle is even higher for private terraced houses.
The single-family house is becoming obsolete, according to study author Jörn Schellenberg. Increasing land prices make structural densification obvious and interesting with existing exploitation reserves. The economic incentive here meets the spatial planning goal of economical use of the land, and not the wish of potential single family homes.