Second homes: big counts in cities, big shares in the mountains

Counting second homes: the big cities come first

Zürich has the largest number of second homes of any municipality, with 21,486, followed by Geneva with 19,219 and Basel with 11,338. The median municipality has 116, so the totals at the head of the table are on another scale altogether.

These totals follow the size of the housing stock. The three largest counts belong to the three most populous municipalities: Zürich, Geneva and Basel. Next come Bern with 11,092 and Lausanne with 10,088.

A count says little about how much second homes matter locally. Zürich has 21,486 second homes, more than any other municipality. Yet they make up only 9.0% of its dwellings, a share below the median of 10.5%. In this statistic a second home is any dwelling that is neither a primary residence nor treated as one, so in a large city the count covers more than holiday flats.

Geneva follows a similar pattern: 19,219 second homes, or 16.9% of its dwellings, a higher share than in Zürich but nowhere near the shares in the mountain communities.

Measured by share, the map turns upside down

Measured as a share of all dwellings, the picture reverses. Verzasca comes first with 81.5%, followed by Obersaxen Mundaun with 81.0%, Lavizzara with 80.2% and Obergoms with 79.1%. The median municipality stands at 10.5%.

These are small communities: Verzasca has 749 residents, Obersaxen Mundaun has 1,151 and Lavizzara has 504. In villages this small, a modest number of holiday flats is enough to outweigh the homes of the people who live there all year.

The pattern repeats across the mountain cantons. The highest share in Grisons is 81.0% in Obersaxen Mundaun, in Valais it is 79.1% in Obergoms, in Ticino it is 81.5% in Verzasca, in Bern it is 69.5% in Hasliberg and in Uri it is 61.6% in Andermatt.

Swiss law limits the building of new second homes in municipalities where they exceed a fifth of the housing stock. The ten places in the figure are all far above that line, which is why the share, and not the count, is the figure that matters for local planning.

Well-known resorts sit between the two extremes

A few mountain municipalities combine a large number of second homes with a large share. Davos is ranked 6 of 2,108 by count, Crans-Montana is ranked 7 of 2,108 and Val de Bagnes is ranked 9 of 2,108. In each, they account for 58.9%, 58.0% and 54.1% of the dwellings, and Davos alone has 7,582.

Some of the best-known resorts are further down the share table than the small valley communities at the top. Zermatt has 51.9% and St. Moritz has 53.4%, behind Arosa at 73.0%, Grindelwald at 62.8% and Andermatt at 61.6%. Even so, all of them are well above the median of 10.5%.

Building and empty flats tell another story

New building follows a different logic. The yearly rate of new dwellings, as a share of the existing stock over 2020-2024, is 0.37% in Davos, 0.33% in Arosa and 0.33% in Grindelwald, against a median of 0.79% across municipalities. In the places at the head of the share table the rates are lower still: 0.07% in Verzasca and 0.00% in Lavizzara.

Andermatt is the exception among resorts: its rate of 3.95% is ranked 14 of 1,803, while second homes already account for 61.6% of its dwellings. The highest rates are found elsewhere. Crissier, Troinex, Bournens and Matran build at 5.95%, 5.91%, 5.38% and 5.31% a year, and these are small and mid-sized municipalities rather than resorts or big cities.

Vacancy is a third lens. The rate is 0.12% in Davos, 0.09% in Andermatt and 0.19% in Grindelwald, against a median of 0.83%, so it stays close to zero in these three. That pattern is common in places where second homes dominate. At the other end, Matran has the highest vacancy rate, 10.00%, together with a building rate of 5.31% (ranked 4 of 1,803).

How to read counts and shares

The two tables answer different questions. The count shows where the largest numbers of second homes are, which is where most people live. The share shows where holiday homes shape the local housing market, and that is the better guide for villages and resorts.

Shares in very small municipalities move quickly, because a few buildings change the result. Municipal mergers can also blend villages with very different mixes of homes into a single figure, and a rate of building or vacancy based on a small stock can look dramatic without describing a trend.

Read together, the measures give a simple picture. Cities hold the biggest numbers but dilute them in a large stock. Valleys and resorts hold smaller numbers that dominate a small stock and build little, while the fastest building takes place in small and mid-sized municipalities that are not resorts.