Notwithstanding a clear slowdown in construction activity, office space in need of tenants has continued to increase in Switzerland’s urban centers.
The segment’s vacancy rate increased by 0.9 percentage points (pp) between the end of 2019 and the end of 2024, to stand at 5.0%. Over twelve months, the degree of vacancy even jumped by 9%.
If Geneva is an exception with a marginal decline of 0.1% over five years, the vacancy rate of 6.2% remains one of the highest in the country. The agglomeration around the City of Calvin, however, shed its red lantern at the expense of the Basel region, which with an increase of 3.4 pp saw its vacancy rate explode to 6.4%, according to a statement from the New York commercial real estate consulting firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) published Monday.
In the City of Zurich and on the outskirts of the City of Zwingli, the unclaimed supply increased by 1.3 pp to 5.3%, while Lausanne showed an increase of 0.9 pp to 3.8 pp. Berne remains the most tense urban center with 2.4% (+0.4 pp), even ahead of the entrepreneurial paradise of Zug and its 3.0%.
The authors of the report nevertheless note that the rise in vacancy rates in Helvetia is relative, given the rise in those of the 22 main European cities, of 3.3 pp for an average of 8.5%.
If office construction activity in Switzerland has continued to erode since the explosion of the coronavirus pandemic and the tremendous rise in teleworking, JLL experts assume that demand has remained “in the whole intact. The volume of 57,000 m2 of new surface areas recorded in 2024, compared to 343,000 m2 in 2020, must therefore constitute an inflection point from which volumes will resume their upward trend in the medium term.
The firm also observes that many funds and investment vehicles carried out capital increases in the second half of last year, allowing them to begin the 2025 financial year with full pockets. He therefore anticipates a revival in transaction volumes, further boosted by the current low interest rates.
This article was automatically published. Sources: ats/awp
