«Buyers and sellers aren’t getting around to seal a deal at the moment. The number of transactions is going to fall further,» said Martin Neff, chief economist of Raiffeisen Switzerland. In a study on the real estate market in Switzerland (in German), the retail-banking giant suggests that the business will see a slowdown, but avoid a full-scale crash.

Property prices haven’t yet shown any signs of receding, but the number of real estate ads has dropped strongly. The ads for villas and apartments put on the market has gone down by half since April.

Raiffeisen said that the slowdown was down to two reasons: potential buyers had seen their assets drop in value due to the stock market crash. And the economic uncertainty has increased to a degree that buyers tend to delay decisions with far-reaching implications.