Seems like this week is Swiss real estate tool week — someone posted Helvedom two days ago, and now here I am with another one. Sorry (not sorry)
It’s called immometrics.ch and it’s free and no registration needed.
You paste a listing URL and it auto-extracts the data. From there you go through a short wizard, get live calculations with Swiss-specific standards and can run different scenarios.
It’s still beta and I’m sure there are errors, missing edge cases and Canton-specific quirks I got wrong. That’s exactly why I’m posting here. You’re experienced investors who know where the traps are, and I’d genuinely love to know what’s wrong, what’s missing, or what’s misleading. Harsh feedback is very welcome, better to hear it now than after many people are relying on it.
make a deepl autotranslation to have at least an english version?
import doesn’t work with comparis.ch (collects from all major platforms including newhome, homegate and immoscout) nor immobilier.ch (RE agencies seem to use it a lot at least here in Suisse Romande)
add comparis? that should give a wider autoimport usefulness
I entered a few properties (4) just taking them from comparis ads, the results seem to make sense, but I will try to enter the same properties into my own sheet to compare
That’s all I have so far, the site is very professional, simple and understandable look
Thanks a lot for the quick and valuable feedback. This is exactly what I need to improve the tool.
I have some updates based on your points. The tool is now available in English, French, and Italian alongside German. You can find the language switcher directly on the site.
Regarding the imports, I have updated the logic so you can now paste URLs from Comparis, immobilier.ch and almost any other major platform. The logos on the landing page were just examples but the scraper is designed to be much more flexible now.
I am most excited to hear how the results compare to your own Excel sheet. That comparison is the ultimate stress test for my calculations and it is the most important part for me to get right. Please let me know if you spot any discrepancies in the numbers.
Cool stuff. Thanks!
As you posted in this forum (FIRE, investments etc.) I must remark that the buy v.s. rent calculator is way to simplistic and should off include the opportunity cost of alternative investments. This really changes the picture drastically (for disciplined investors).
As it is right now, it confirms more the simplistic financial view, most home buyers tend to choose as it nearly always gives the peace of mind of good financial decision instead of showing the full financial picture.
Great point, thanks for the candid feedback! You’re absolutely right.
My current focus was more on the “I’ve already decided to buy an investment property, now let’s check the yield” side of things. For a true Buy vs. Rent comparison, especially within the FIRE community, ignoring the opportunity cost of equity is indeed a major blind spot. If that 200k CHF down payment isn’t earning 7% in the market, the property has a very high bar to clear.
I’d love to bridge this gap. To make this tool actually useful for a disciplined investor, what specific variables would you want to see included?
In my head, I’m thinking of adding:
Alternative Investment Return: A field for expected annual ROI (e.g., 7% for S&P 500/MSCI World).
Tax Nuances: Factoring in “Eigenmietwert” vs. the tax-free nature of capital gains on private assets in Switzerland.
Monthly Savings Gap: If renting is cheaper than the total cost of ownership (interest + maintenance + amortization), that “saved” difference should be reinvested in the “Rent” scenario.
Is there anything else you usually bake into your spreadsheets to get the full picture? I’d rather the tool be “brutally honest” than just a confirmation bias machine for home buyers.
I think that there are a few buy vs rent calculators that incorporate investing opportunity cost for reference.
Key variables imo:
benchmark: average return of eg a world etf denominated in chf after cost ( not hedged but reflecting currency fluctuations), prop around 5-6%
Expected appreciation of house prices
Maintenance cost (usually between 0.5-1% of house price)
Interest payment
Amortization
Property gain taxes (can be significant dep on canton and duration of property held) - only the the gain is realized
Transaction cost when buying and selling (habdänderungdsteuer, notary, real estate agent etc.)
% or amount of difference between buy expenditure and rent that is actually invested
Price of current appartment and/or rent price of equivalent appartment/house about to buy (often people will compare currentrent for an inferior place to the more expensive object they are to buy)
You probably can leave out inflation for now as it applies to both paths somehow.
Eigenmietwert as well as deductions for renovation and interest payments can be probably ignored as they go away soon (with disclaimer).
Make all values editable with some guidance on upper, average and lower bounds.
Possibly modle different outcomes scenarios, ideally monte carlo like but maybe simpler approaches will do (pro feature?)
This can be a particular nasty beast when selling. E.g. a house worth 800k in 1985 would be now worth >1.5mio just by inflation, without any actual gains. Still in most cases the fiscus will ask >20% tax on that 700k fully inflation attributed gain. A tax that was originally meant to limit speculation turned out to mostly another general tax on peoples wealth.
Thanks for the great input, especially the point about Grundstückgewinnsteuer eating into purely inflation-driven “gains.” Hadn’t thought about it that way before, but you’re spot on.
I went ahead and worked a few things into the calculator based on your feedback:
The rent field now asks for a comparable rent (what would this place cost to rent?) instead of just “current rent,” which makes the whole comparison a lot more honest
Sale simulation already accounts for Grundstückgewinnsteuer per canton, including holding period discounts, so yes, the full nominal gain gets taxed, inflation and all
Added a small assumptions box so people can actually see what’s baked in (2% mortgage, 1% appreciation, 1.5% rent growth, etc.)
There’s also an ETF comparison toggle now where you can pit equity plus monthly savings against a world ETF as an alternative
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