I know people who bought houses that required a lot of renovation. I think these people will disappear as it was barely economical what they were doing before, but without the tax deduction even worse and they cannot compete with the commercial people who still get a deduction. at the margin, this will reduce demand and therefore prices.
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Make it make sense that no interest of any private debt will be deductible. It would be insane to vote yes, given that in previous years, people were highly incentivised to take on as much debt as possible.
(Or everything privately held will be moved to a company with a holding on top which will end up being more or less the same as before the vote but with more bureaucracy.)
The government wants you to delever.
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I remember we all agreed on a new moderation policy 3 years ago that excludes political discussions (not policy discussions) from this personal finance forum, after a long and productive discussion. Has a new moderation policy been decided?
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While other debt has nothing to do with imputed rent, what would be the rational to deduct interest for any kind of debt for income tax? I’d get the point for a margin loan if it generates taxable income, but say consumer debt?
Which is why business decisions shouldn’t be made based primarily on taxes. Or the other way around, tax money shouldn’t be used to enable poor personal decision making 
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I think actually it’s a good thing when old houses gets renovated instead of tearing down. Also from an economic perspective a continuous renovation provides work for (local) craft where a complete redo is a one off event potentially done by a general contractor.
So I guess newer homes get more expensive and older homes will lose value.
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Well it‘s negative income? You tax wealth and income like dividends, so why not deduct negative wealth (loans) and negative income (interest)?
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It’s not like people will stop renovating, the reason to renovate things is often to improve your own quality of life and that incentive is not subject to tax plays.
What goes away is the notion of having to split artisan bills over two, three years (suppose you do 14 months of renovations from December t0 to January t2) so as to maximise tax effect, and of course the ability to pay with pretax money.
The latter of which will lead to a marginal slowing of renovation activity financed out of active income, but then, most renovations are financed through mortgages. So it’s really only those who know how to compute a tax DCF analysis of a renovation project that suffer. 
What about private landlord? IIUC unless they set it up as a separate company I think this also apply.
I don’t know what fraction of rental market is private landlord vs companies, but it could have an impact on the overall quality of housing stock. (I think swiss housing was really good compared to neighboring countries).
Edit: that said if this passes, I expect most private investor will setup companies to simplify and shield. Will be extra money for the lawyers/accountant and probably won’t apply to existing homes being rented out only new acquisition (since afaik shifting from direct to indirect isn’t trivial).
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As @nabalzbhf points out, owner occupied homes would keep being renovated. Private landlords have little incentive to renovate their assets, though, as the energy bill is footed by the tenants and in many places, there’s limited availability of newer builds, making poorly maintained assets still competitive.
We’re in 2025. The small house I’m renting is heated with electricity and poorly insulated. The house I’ve bought and am renovating was also heated with electricity. There’s a lot of ground to cover and the new law would make renovating less competitive vs using new land to build new houses.
Removal of imputed rental value and associated deductions does not at all touch private rental income deductions.
So incentives don’t change. And they won’t as long as long-term tenants are not subject to market forces. But that’s a different topic entirely 
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You’re right (I don’t think most of the summaries I read online mention this).
What used to be deductible for everyone (art 32 lifd) was moved to art 32a and restricted to rental properties.
That said it’s not a copy paste and it was rephrased (eg no longer lists energy reduction or environment explicitly as being potentially eligible). No idea why.
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Renovation is an important point, especially if you live in Kanton Zurich like I do. You have to replace oil based heating systems. Mine is more than 20 years old, always maintained, 98+something percent efficiency, 30+months with one tank of oil. So, if it breaks down I am probably allowed to fix it but not to replace it with a new one. If I want to sell or rent out the house I have to replace it with another system.
Tax deduction will have some influence on my decision, spend a lot of time and money on bureaucracy (permits) and a suboptimal heating system or sell the house. If I sell my house, it will be teared down and some blocks will be constructed.
Interest deductions for mortgages on rental properties will be restricted to the proportion of those assets to total wealth.
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Agreed, but you need more money to do it, so automatically renovation works will get slowed down and in some cases just not carried out.
And as mortgage interest is no longer deductible, you’ll get yet another slow down.
Or an expense over time, like groceries, entertainment or cloths
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Cantons (esp. Zürich) are likely to continue giving tax incentives for renovations that get us closer to net zero (heat pump, improved isolation).
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I think that renovations being deductible has brought a mark up to renovation costs. Contractors are overcharging and owners swallowing high renovation costs … because they can deduct them. In other words, the market has always priced in the costumer will save on taxes later.
I agree with others that if renovation deductions go away, owner-occupied owners will slow down or postpone renovations. But they will also haggle more. And contractors of all types will in the long run adjust prices.
When/If the vote passes, I wish different cantons introduce legislation at different times (years apart). Then economists get a live experiment on what prices change and when.
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