Luxurious for the developers who can get 4x2500 in rent instead of 1x4000.
To be fair, new apartments are more modern and have a lot of luxurious conveniences compared to older housing stock. Latest gadgets, high-end fixtures and fittings.
My last house, had no central heating, no triple glazed windows and I had to put wood in the oven to keep the house warm. Compare that to electrically controlled underfloor heating with wooden floorboards.
What I have noticed is that many new apartment blocks are building 1.5-3.5 room combinations, rather than incorporating family-friendly 4.5 or 5.5 rooms. I guess this maximises income and reduces risk of empty occupancy, but leaves less availability for modern families of 2-3 kids who need the space.
Being serious now…
Around here, in real estate terms ‘luxury’ tends to mean one thing: price segment.
Such properties are usually listed ‘Auf Anfrage’ - actually another marketing ploy - so ‘luxury’ is the buzzword that signals this flat or house is going to be sold or rented for silly money.
That said, how you, or I, or anyone else defines luxury will of course be geared to individual desires. A flat could be blinged out in gold and dripping in diamonds and I would not call it luxurious - because to me, the only real luxury in the Swiss housing market is not sharing walls with neighbors. But another person might feel the opposite, seeing the work required to keep a garden as a negative and the freedom of a turnkey flat as a goal. We’re all different.
Given how tight the Swiss housing market is, there really isn’t a concept of fundamental value. So luxury or 0815, who knows? Value is only how much someone is willing to pay today, regardless of what that property actually is.
I fully agree with this, the real luxury is having 300+ m2 of land for yourself.
As Phil_MCR mentioned, apartments are comfortable and useful. They have elevator, underground parking, new windows, floor heating. Furnished kitchen and washing machine are already there. Very convenient but sharing walls, floors and ceiling implies some work. Working is not luxurious.
So, I can’t help but feel a bit bothered by land + single house owners opposing luxury apartments. People should look at a mirror before dissing something.
I lived in a few apartments. Some of them I never even saw the neighbours - only meeting them by chance once on an unrelated social event.
When laundry facilities are in the flat, everything is self-contained and comfortable.
Shared laundry can sometimes cause some friction with timetables etc., but also worked mostly problem free.
Sorry for derailing a bit the thread.
Back to the topic, a recent survey: the YES has come down to 51%.
Also, blame the French-speaking cantons 
Romansh is a failure of software translation, it’s Romandie.
It will be very close. But a subtle warning to those including to say no. The removal of the imputed rent has already been decided. It will happen. But it awaits the tools for the cantons to offset their loss in revenue. If the second residence tax fails, the cantons will find another way of offsetting the revenue loss. And that could hurt even more than the proposal on the table.
In this economy? /s
Good in principle but some things one cannot control.
I had a friend in England with the same idea.
She sold her house and extensive garden to a nice young couole at a low price.
As soon as the paperwork was signed they sold it to a developer at a huge profit.
Not so easy to do here without incurring capital gains tax.
There should be a way to generate income while minimizing tax liability. Lease the land, collateral for a loan…life finds its way.
Hey even a huge capital gain tax is going to be less than the huge profit.
Capital gains tax is a % of the profit so one still walks away with a tidy profit
Capital gains tax on real estate will generally be deferred if a primary home is sold and income from the sale is re-invested in a replacement property in Switzerland that serves the same purpose within two years.
The removal of Eigenmietwert will remove a perceived barrier to buying property.
I have always been amazed how many well-paid Swiss in banking and insurance are happy to spend their lives paying rent. The staff deals are such that mortgages are basically free for them. One objection to buying that always came up in conversation was “I don’t want to pay more tax on income I never earned”…
Now we understand how the business quality of the well-paid Swiss bankers caused UBS to be bailed out, and CS collapsed
We rent a townhouse built in 1980s. I don’t consider it luxury in any way. I can imagine that our 3 attached houses can be replaced with a modern building with 6 apartments with panoramic windows, large terraces and floor heating, which might be considered luxury. I can even imagine that the rental price for each apartment would be the same that we pay for the house.
I missed the obvious: everyone has a different perspective of luxury.
I’ve spent most of my life out in the suburbs and literally a farm. Not sharing a wall with neighbors, or having them a few hundred meters away is “luxury”. Single house + big yard + public transport is unattainable here, at least with my income and without making too many compromises.
Indeed. Luxury can mean creature comforts and/or freedom. For me, at this time in my life, luxury means a relatively modern flat with underfloor heating that I can lock up and go whenever. I’m not responsible for fixing anything that breaks. I don’t have to mow the lawn or maintain a garden, etc. Some people might find that restrictive and prefer an older house with radiators and their own garden. To each his or her own. 
I’ve seen an offer: the seller just got the property for 2 years, arranged the selling costs as original price + 15% inflation increase and 120k selling fee. I have no idea if this worked for them, but they warned every potential customer that they’ll need the 80% of the first 2 + 120k out of their pocket to get a mortgage.
You’re wrong. That’s little wonder as the question asked is massively misleading.
The abolishment of the imputed rent is coupled with the first question, it’s either both get accepted or neither. The booklet doesn’t explicitly say so but the short text under the council’s recommendation for a Yes makes it nonetheless clear:
Die Abschaffung der Eigenmietwertbesteuerung vereinfacht das Steuersystem und reduziert die Anreize zur privaten Verschuldung.
L’abolition de l’imposition de la valeur locative simplifie le système fiscal et réduit les incitations à l’endettement des ménages.
