What concerns and moves homeowners today? Houzy, the first open and leading platform for home ownership in Switzerland, wanted to know. That's why we surveyed a representative number of homeowners online. The majority of the results confirm what we suspected, but some findings surprised us as well.
The houses and apartments of the 1,901 survey participants were built in 1989 (median). This was a time when fossil fuels such as oil or gas were plentiful, cost almost nothing and no one was seriously concerned about CO2 or the climate. It is therefore hardly surprising that almost half of the homeowners surveyed heat their homes with outdated oil heating systems (23.6 percent), natural gas heating systems (20.6 percent) and electric heating systems (3.7 percent).
Viele Heizungen nähern sich dem Ende ihrer Lebenszeit. Knapp ein Viertel der Wohneigentümer plant den Ersatz in absehbarer Zeit, fast ein Drittel davon in diesem Jahr: 7,3 Prozent aller Wohneigentümer wollen ihre Heizung 2023 ersetzen. Noch stärker sind die Wechselabsichten der Wohneigentümer, die mit Öl oder Gas heizen: 42,2 Prozent wollen demnächst und 13,2 Prozent noch in diesem Jahr umsteigen. Der Trend geht zu Wärmepumpen mit einem Anteil von 41,1 Prozent, Tendenz schnell und stark steigend. Von diesem Trend werden die Heizungsinstallateure profitieren, auf die viel Arbeit wartet.
A quarter of homeowners produce at least some of their own electricity. Half of homeowners and condominium owners without a solar power system plan to install a photovoltaic system in the next few years, with 30 percent doing so in 2023. That's 14.9 percent of all homeowners this year alone. Solar installers won't run out of work anytime soon in the next few years. But homeowners will have to be patient, willy-nilly: Components such as modules or inverters are just as scarce as solar installers to expertly install them. What's more, their order books are full to the brim. Anyone who orders a solar power system now will have to be happy if they can produce their own inexpensive solar power before the end of the year.
Almost two-thirds of all homeowners awarded contracts to craftsmen in 2022. Half of them placed one order, a quarter placed two orders, and a quarter even placed three or more orders. The order size was 15,000 Swiss francs (median). Electricians, plumbers, painters and plasterers were the most frequently commissioned.
More than half of the jobs went to alredy known craftsmen, while a quarter of homeowners asked friends, acquaintances or neighbors for recommendations. The proportion of homeowners who searched for craftsmen via search engines or on craftsmen platforms is 16 percent, and rising. This trend is likely to increase as more digitally savvy people own homes. The three most important factors for selection were quality, regionality and comparison of offers. Most homeowners are very satisfied with the work of their craftsmen, giving them an average grade of 8.5. Homeowners who have commissioned already known craftsmen (8.68) are the most satisfied. The work of craftsmen found on the Internet or on platforms such as Houzy was also rated as very good, with an 8.1. Homeowners were least satisfied with the recommendations of their architects (7.47).
One-sixth of homeowners plan to sell their property in the foreseeable future. One-fifth of them in the next twelve months. This would mean that around 3.5 percent of houses and apartments in Switzerland will be on the market in 2023.
Many homeowners with intent to sell plan to sell the property without a realtor. One third have already sold a property: Just under half of them with realtors, the others independently, sometimes assisted by sales tools. Slightly more than one-sixth of the homeowners surveyed plan to buy property, and more than 40 percent of them want to sell at the same time. This confirms the trend that more and more homeowners are selling their house and buying a property as soon as their children have moved out, because they need less living space or no longer want or are able to maintain the large garden.
In January and February 2023, 1,901 homeowners answered all the questions in our first online survey, which we will repeat annually in the future. Three quarters of the respondents own a house, one quarter owns an apartment. With this representative study, we want to find out what moves homeowners, identify trends at an early stage, and align our tools even better with the needs of homeowners. The key data of the study:
Houzy is the first open and leading platform for home ownership in Switzerland. We digitize and automate the lifecycle " buying - living - selling" with interactive tools and support our fast growing community with a lot of expert know-how. More than 120,000 homeowners have now digitally recorded more than 180,000 houses or apartments. Thanks to their solid data, we know, for example, when they should renovate the bathroom, replace the windows or modernize the heating system. Our strategic partners UBS and Baloise believe in our vision "We make home ownership simple" and have been working with us on the largest home ownership ecosystem in Switzerland since 2020.
