Maybe others have come across listings of apartments/houses at well below market value. A lot of these direct people to a site selling a catalogue for house auctions in Switzerland.
Examples here (I won’t like directly to their site…) which are generally seem to be listed at 20-50% below market value:
Do the listed houses/flats actually exist and maybe the advertised price is the auction starting price? Or is this a pure scam? Are home auctions even common in Switzerland?
If there are images try searching them with https://tineye.com/. If it’s a scam you might find that the image if from somewhere else not even in Switzerland.
Edit: They all seem to say “Musterfoto” to avoid that…
When we were looking for a house we bought one Exemplar oft the catalogue. The houses in there exist also in the Websites oft the Betreibungsämter. So you can look them up there.
es far as I know, they are more common than what we think. The bank usually tries to only recoup the losses, so the price is below market. Problem is, you need to pay like in 2 days after winning the auction, so you need either lots of cash or a pre-arrangement with a quick to react bank. Additionally you need to buy on the spot: everybody goes to the home, make a tour, and than the bidding starts. So if it is for the home you want to live in, you need to make a decision fast. Additionally you don’t really know what kind of maintenance you will have to do. I’ve found a blog once of a siwss guy doing this, but can’t find it again.
Yes, as others have said, the auction houses from “betreibungsamt” definitely exist, each canton will have on their own website, for example https://www.bka.bs.ch/versteigerung-verkauf/liegenschaften.html
I had lots of free time a few years ago & went to the object viewing (usually a week or 2 before the auction, so you would have time to sleep it over, organise some cash, maybe get a bank confirmation if u need a bit of a loan), there were at least 20-30 people there.
Then the auction, maybe 4 people, someone from the bank I think, someone who stopped bidding at a very low price (probably just a bargain-hunter there in case no-one else came) and two parties who bid in earnest. After the auction, the winner handed over an envelope and I think 100’000 deposit in 1000 franc notes were counted & signed for by the court.
As with such processes try step through the process with a test run before your dream house comes along.
Also these properties are usually being repossessed due to bankruptcy which usually takes a while to happen & then come to court. The maintenance and condition can be a bit neglected the last years. The one I looked at had a messy living there. Needless to say in that example you would probably be getting a house crammed to the brim with junk when (and if) you finally manage to eject the ex-owner and now your renter (can take a year or longer if they fight the eviction, possibly paying no rent in the meantime). Of course can be totally easy-peasy too!
I went to an auction for a “big” studio in Vevey. There was literraly 100 people to the visit and in the auction room… The expert’s price was 240k and it was sold for more than 600k…