New initiative for cost rent and rent control

According to the law, it is prohibited. And yet they are widespread. The tenant association wants to change this with an initiative. The house owner association on the other side warns of the consequences of the referendum with drastic words.

« The development of rents knows only one direction, » says Michael Töngi, « upstairs ». And for years. This was done by the figures from the Federal Statistics Office. « On average, tenants today pay CHF 360 per month, » explains the Vice President of the Tenants’ Association of Switzerland. In 2023 alone, landlords had « collected over CHF 10 billion for improperly high rents ».

And because nobody could live, it affects the approximately 60 percent tenants of the population every month. The fact that the tenant is still paying this is because there is always a demand for demand in many places. Töngi calls the city of Zurich with 450,000 inhabitants and 540,00,000 jobs.

It would be much more important to be more flexible building regulations and slimmer approval procedures: « Only if more apartments arise can the pressure on rents be reduced sustainably. » In practice, a purely return -based control would hardly be implemented. That would trigger an « enormous bureaucracy »: « Each apartment would have to be checked regularly regarding the condition, expansion standard and cost structure. »

From the point of view of the homeowner president, the initiative does not solve any problems, but rather tighten it. A general rent control would « replace the proven order – like the free parity arbitration authorities – with an absurd control machinery ». « Planism economy, less prosperity, higher taxes – and no more square meters of living space ».