Switerzland: low mortgage rates push for long-term

Swiss mortgage rates are at a record low without any downward trend: this is the housing market's situation that emerges from the latest Mortgage Barometer carried out by the website Comparis.ch.

In the Q3 2016, the 10-year fixed-rate mortgages has again decreased slightly, dropping to 1.45%, 0.06% less than the previous three months. The same trend was also observed for five-year mortgages (from 1.11% to 1.09%) and for one-year (from 1,10% to 1.06%).

"In September we have observed, temporarily, a new slight increase: the rebound, however, lasted a short while," says the expert Marc Parmentier banking sector.
According to Parmentier, so that the rates will increase noticeably so again, it would be necessary that the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to abandon the policy of negative rates. However, at this stage, the SNB appears to rule out such a maneuver.

The cost of mortgages, currently at record lows, pushed the owners to favour long durations, chosen by 84% of customers in the third quarter, compared to 76% earlier this year. The short- and medium-term loans are less and less popular, falling respectively from 21% to 15% and from 3% to 1.6%.

The Comparis.ch data is based on reference rates of about 65 lenders, updated on a daily basis while funding applications submitted its affiliate HypoPlus were analyzed on the duration of the mortgage.

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