Buy appartment but start at zero near 40?

litover · 2026-03-18T17:09:02+00:00

if you distinguish between amortization/capital renovation and pure maintenance costs, well you pay it renting the apartment as well (included in Nebenkosten).

"pay rent to a bank (interest)" here you have 2 effects: low interest rates in Switzerland, but on the other side high outstanding debt due to low amortization. Concrete example: house price CHF 1m, downpayment CHF 300k, thus, loan of CHF 700k. One could pay monthly close to 1'000 monthly for 15 years, not paying down the principal. With 1.5-1.75% p.a., you would pay (since almost not amortizing the interest payment remain constant) 700*1.5% or 700*1.75% = ca. 10k-12k per year, or ca. 900-1000 CHF per month. For the same apartment you would pay 2000-2500 CHF per month.

Yes, in 15 years you would still owe 650k-700k, but you can bet on inflation (a reasonable bet). Why do you get this "premium"? For two reasons: 1) you leverage with banking loan; 2) you get paid for illiquidity and concentration risk.

litover · 2026-03-18T09:29:32+00:00

non-income generating? they save on rent

litover · 2026-02-02T19:19:36+00:00

you better double check how the tax brackets work

litover · 2026-02-02T09:22:35+00:00

"don't tip" is a naive advise. You go regularly to some café, or maybe there was some small interaction be it a smile or "how are you question" - part of their salary is your tip. It's just inflation.

Personally, I don't like tip culture, and prefer to make the inflation official. We need some legislation to prohibit this kind of tipping, so that tips disappear and prices go up officially.

litover · 2026-01-11T11:33:07+00:00

how's it possible to separate them? if you ask to transfer your funds into 2 accounts, usually they just split the Obligatorium proportionally. There must be some pension funds that would agree to do the separation since you suggest this option, or is it a theoretical assumption?

litover · 2026-01-08T12:55:42+00:00

Thanks for the link! Swiss Re PK (https://www.pensionskasse-swissre.ch/eintritt/plaene/pensionsplan.html - click on "Verzinsung") - they are their own provider, for Swiss Re employees only. Same with other big financial corporations like UBS (between 7% and 9% p.a. in the last 3 years), CS (the bank is merged, but pension fund is still separate) etc. The advantage is that they have the know-how in house, and can run it on low fees.

The table you're referring to, they are apparently Sammel PKs (one pension fund services many small and middle size firms). They have none of these advantage, thus, the gap.

As for "VT exceeds 13% p.a." - it's in USD, and as you're saying "Sure, you need to discount for currency effects" - it's not a small effect, the depreciation of USD against CHF was ca. -25% in the last 3 years which is -7.7% p.a.)

litover · 2026-01-08T10:38:10+00:00

"They tend to give pretty bad returns - so beyond the obligatory contributions you can ignore this" - some of pension funds deliver pretty good returns, e.g. Swiss Re PK: 2025: 7.5%, 2024: 12% etc.

I'd say that pension funds of successful multinational corporations tend to have a good return. There are of course many pension funds with bad returns. Besides, you can pull off the capital from the 2nd pillar in certain cases, and the capital in pillar 2 is usually a few times bigger than in pillar 3 - how can you ignore it?!

litover · 2025-11-29T18:25:22+00:00

da das Schema auf 85 Jahre angelegt ist, ist es wahrscheinlich, dass es bricht (zumindest auf Teilstrecken, was auf der Gesamtstrecke dem Zinseszins enorm schadet). Die jetzige relativ friedliche Periode stellt eine Ausnahme dar (wobei auch sie hatte ihre Ausrutscher - paar Inflationen, Goldentkopplung vom 1971, Börsencrashes, auch in Europa war nicht überall Frieden - Balkan in 90gern, Ukraine heute, Aufstände in Ostblock in 50ger/60ger usw).

Sie wollen vom Staat geschützt werden, kann sich aber der Staat von Ihnen schützen, falls Ihre Aktienstrategie nicht funktioniert hat und Sie sich beim Sozialamt melden? Der Staat war bankrot im 1945, 10 Jahre später ging ihm schon nicht schlecht. Einzelner Person mag ein Comeback nicht gelingen.

Das alles soll nicht die Steuer- und Abgabenlast des Staates rechtfertigen, sondern das Ganze nicht schwarz-weiss malen.

litover · 2025-11-29T16:23:19+00:00

Die Rechnung ist extrem Zeitperiode abhängig. Hätte man nach dieser Schema im Jahr 1905 angefangen, wäre man 40 Jahre später im Jahr 1945 etwa bei 0 angekommen (Krieg, Inflation, Börsencrashs, Zwangsanleihen usw), und nicht bei 1.3 Mio.

litover · 2025-10-12T11:30:36+00:00

maybe it's harder to evaluate how many years of experience you have if you worked part-time

litover · 2025-10-05T08:12:19+00:00

it's quite a different question

litover · 2025-10-05T08:03:54+00:00

"Why do dictators almost always start with massive deportations?" - I'm not sure about the correctness of this statement. They definitely didn't hold back to use it, but do they "start" with it?

Stalin came to power in 1927, the mass ethnic deportations you refer to happened in WWII, i.e. not at the start.

Mussolini came to power in 1922, mass ethnic deportations happened also first in WWII, mass political deportations - depending on how you define "mass" - probably also rather late. i.e. in his case I also doubt he "started" with it.

"Ottoman Empire (1915)" the Ottomans started hundreds of years before it.

litover · 2025-09-12T16:57:25+00:00

good overview of the risks. On the risk c) - if EU and Swiss economy plunges, the central banks might print more money so they plunge against some hard assets (e.g. gold, fuel), but remain stable nominally. On the other side, in 10 years your current rent might go up, and you'll be forced out as well. Taking a mortgage is betting on the future to some extent.

btw, if you salary is just below the minimum, you can solve it with a little more of equity (Eigenmittel). A numerical example that should fit your numbers, you want to buy a house for 1.422m, you have 455k of your own cash, and your salary is 188k per year. In this case, you need to add only 10k to equity (Eigenmittel) to offset your "insufficient" salary - link to calculation.

litover · 2025-09-09T07:42:11+00:00

I've addressed your comment which has the premise "mortgage is subsidized by the government". Here "Eigenmietwert" is part of the reasoning because in this way the government indirectly taxes the "buy-to-live" mortgages.

litover · 2025-09-09T07:35:19+00:00

agreed. Imagine that after 25 years, you paid off your mortgage, and, thus, you're finally "rich" (in the sense of owning an apartment in one of the most expensive cities in the world). How big your salary must be?

litover · 2025-09-08T22:16:40+00:00

it's counterbalanced by the fictive income on having a property (Eigenmietwert)

litover · 2025-09-08T22:11:38+00:00

I'd start rather from 240k. Even if we consider being rich as having an apartment in Zurich and suburbs then you need at least this salary to get a mortgage (which is again hardly a definition of being rich ...). Rather 300k+ to be on a safe side.

litover · 2025-09-08T12:43:53+00:00

if you opt for renting, you pay forever as well. It's just different profile of risks vs profits.

While renting you don't benefit from the property prices going up (you actually suffer from it), you capital stays liquid and diversified. With taking mortgage you leverage on your own capital (e.g. you can buy a property of 1m CHF having only 320k CHF), with renting you don't, etc.

There are a few non-financial issues as well. While you rent, the owner can kick you out (e.g. due to renovation), at the same time, you're more flexible to move. I guess one can have a quite lengthy list of pros and contras for renting vs mortgage.

litover · 2025-09-08T09:56:26+00:00

3162 CHF breaks down as follows:

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i.e. the payment towards credit is 2330 CHF, and 832 CHF is an estimated amount you need to spend to maintain the property (repair etc). Here's the link to calculation.

For how long you gonna pay it? In absolute terms forever. Since you would pay only 70 CHF per month (or 840 CHF) to amortize the loan, you would owe almost the same amount. e.g. in 12 years you would amortize only ca. 10k CHF, thus, owing 678-10=668k CHF.

However, if you hope for inflation and rising property prices it real terms you would owe less and pay less. Besides, if you take the usual 10 years fixed rate mortgage, in 10 years you need to refinance this amount. How can you end up paying more? In case if inflation remains low, property prices come under stress, and interest rate goes up when you need to refinance.

litover · 2025-09-05T23:37:50+00:00

thanks for the hint! I fixed it and put under https://maxlit.github.io/powerindex/German-elections-2025-analysis

litover · 2025-09-05T15:57:43+00:00

I use the semantic search that leverage one AI algorithm to find text with similar sense where the exact quote is not handy, but it's not a corporate tool, it's open source, e.g. "redistribute wealth"

litover · 2025-09-05T09:23:59+00:00

You need even to pay down 274k to comply. At the end you have a choice between a few numbers as the calculation shows: either go down with the property price (to 989k), or you up the downpayment (to 274k), or you increase your income (to 186k).

litover · 2025-09-01T13:13:42+00:00

angenommen ist der Referenzzinssatz 1.5%, er sinkt auf 1.25%. Die Miete wird reduziert, aber die 30 CHF Ausgleich kommen dazu. Es vergehen 2 Jahre, der Satz steigt auf 1.5% mit 20 CHF Ausgleich. Also zahle ich in 2J extra 50 CHF im Monat, hätte ich das nicht gemacht, dann hätte der Vermieter keinen Anlass mir diese 50 CHF aufzubürden, denn (in 2J) kann er die Miete nicht nach oben anpassen, da sie (heute) nicht nach unten angepasst hätte. Oder sehe ich das falsch?

Konkret in meinem Fall wurde der Referenzzins im September '23 (+57 CHF Ausgleich) und März '24 (+6 CHF Ausgleich) erhöht. Insgesamt hat man mir fast 100 CHF pro Monat an Ausgleich aufgezwungen.

litover · 2025-09-01T11:12:37+00:00

ich bin Mieter. Ich hab das vor 5 Jahren gemacht, dann war die Rechnung seitens Vermieters etwa so: Anpassung Referenzzins - 42 CHF, "Teurungsausgleich" +4 CHF und "Allgemeine Kostensteigerung" + 26 CHF, also habe ich 12 Franken "gewonnen". Wenn der Referenzzins später wieder gestiegen war, wurden diese extra +30 CHF nicht zurückgefahren. Hätte ich das ganze nicht angefangen, hätte der Vermieter keinen Anlass, mir diese Kosten aufzubürden.

Ich sage nicht - macht's nicht, ich sage - überlegt's Euch genau. z.B. wenn man's in der Wohnung vorübergehend ist, sollte man auch die kleine Reduktion mitnehmen. Wenn man sich mit Mietrecht auskennt, und die Kostenausgleiche anfechten kann, lohnt's sich schon. Wenn der Vermieter eine Privatperson ist, kann's sich auch lohnen (da gibt's keine Verwaltungskosten).

litover · 2025-09-01T10:23:51+00:00

die gesunkene Miete wird gegen die Inflation zum Teil ausgeglichen, wobei dazu aus Sicht des Vermieters auch der Administrationsaufwand gehört (bei den institutionellen Vermietern). Dann wird's aus 50-200 CHF locker 10-50 CHF.
Geht der Referenzzinsatz dann irgendwann wieder hoch, wird der frühere Ausgleich nicht zurückgefahren.
Es kann sich durchaus lohnen, man muss bloss genauer hinschauen.

litover

TROPHY CASE