Would it make sense to buy this flat?

Real Estate
1

Hello, In the summer I spot a construction and I have been thinking of buying a 2.5 flat there.

GÜTSCH Goldau :: Angebot 2. Etappe

The first thing to consider was obviously, living close to rail track. I’ve been there, it’s not particularly noisy as all the trains are stopping at Goldau so they move at low speed at that place. The train announcements are annoying though, but these are not as frequent as the passing by trains. I guess they only announce the important trains, EC/IC.

That being said, I’m leaning to believe that the construction would be adequate isolating all the noise. I don’t use balconies (having large one empty all year round) so I don’t care about noise on the balcony.

Now everything else looks perfect about the flat. Few steps to the train, few minutes to the lake by train, 40 min to Zurich HB, 1h to Lugano. Lol a dream place to choose.

Yet I’m struggling with the calculation. I currently rent in ZH, 1200 + 200 utility bills per month. Moving to Goldau will save me 10k to 14k from taxes. What I don’t know is how much would be the new rent and the theoretical rental value I would have to add to my annual income. I’d like to roughly know how much monthly I would be saving on rent (not taking the mortgage into account, that’s another calculation).

So here’s the dilemma. I can fairly assume I’ll stay in Switzerland for the next 10 years. However later, there’s a high chance I’ll become unemployed due to my age and won’t find a good job, or I’ll decide to FIRE. In both cases it rather won’t make sense to stay in Switzerland as I should have enough wealth to live comfortably in many places except Switzerland.

Looking at the tax savings, it’ll be 100-140k in 10 years. Rent savings 700-900?? a month => ~100k in 10 years. Now of course interest paid/Eignemietwert/property appreciation or depreciation will also pile up to the final picture but I’m even less sure how to assess that.

Honestly it doesn’t sound spectacular, that’s why I became skeptical trying to figure out close approximate values instead of totally rough guess. Looking at ads from Goldau, I guess such flats are rented at 2k/m, should I expect that to be the theoretical income value or even more? The construction company reserves the right to manage the property in the first years. Maybe it’s another rip-off or they do it to better monitor any warranty claims, etc. Anyway, I guess all utilities (flat + underground parking space) and renovation found would costs perhaps ~600 /m in a new building, is it realistic?

EDIT: I’m also not sure about it yet, but assuming the 10 years scenario, I think I’ll keep the property, renting it, provided I’ll have enough money invested elsewhere. Having a steady income ~2k/m from Switzerland could be a solid pillar of living in some cheap place.

2

If you’re going to be in Switzerland only 10 more years, I’d say don’t bother.

1 Like
3

Lol on a 2.5 apartment they call the only room “Eltern”.

4

yeah, sort of, but it’s a nice location, I’m somewhat raised with the way of “owning” the place you live, and after all the future is just unknown. I may as well become rich and retire in Switzerland. I mean I’m going to be rich, but who knows if rich enough for Switzerland or not :wink:

Indeed, alternatively I might just keep looking for a flat to rent there. Lol, that sounds much better now that I think of it.

5

You may want to check about freight trains. Temporarily lived in Rorschach once directly on the lake, separated by a single track. No problem, except for (not noise-dampened) freight trains from Germany at night…

6

I thought about that but never spent any night there. The freight trains go by the other side of the tracks, using the Küsnacht side of the Zug lake. Obviously, it won’t be dead quiet in the night. The statistics says that there’s a few times more freight trains crossing Goldau every year than passenger trains, so they must roll like a chain some nights.

7

The sonBASE shows no railway noise at night for that area – not sure how reliable.

8

I’d rather say, don’t take it literally. Perhaps they assume <= 30 Db is no-noise. There’s a constant motorway hum over the city. It seems the mountain is reflecting the noise. I doubt the motorway “sleeps” during nights. It’s nothing that would bother me, but I don’t expect a dead quiet peaceful village night there.

9

Not reliable, at least for me. I live next to an S4 station in Zurich and the map shows no noise at all.

it’s not particularly noisy as all the trains are stopping at Goldau so they move at low speed at that place.

Braking and accelerating trains are louder than trains that are just passing at constant speed.

At the location being discussed here, all trains running between Zug and Arth-Goldau will be passing (at best) 50 meters from your windows. That’s about 1 train every 30 minutes until a little past midnight. Also the train tracks are significantly elevated wrt these buildings’ ground floor. In Google Maps 3D it looks like the 5th floor will be at about the same height as the “middle” of a passing train.

Based on my S4 experience I would not buy there, but then again S4 uses old, loud and heavy locomotives which makes a big difference.

I hope you like trains :slight_smile:

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10

I used to live near train tracks in the UK - about 100m away. the normal noise didn’t bother me so much, it was the occasional very loud screeching of the wheels against the track that was a bit jarring.