Selling property in Rifferswil: more sales, still no median

Because the threshold is 15 sales per property type and year. In 2025, Rifferswil had 8 houses and 9 condominiums sold on the open market.² Both figures are below 15, so the canton states no median. Each count applies only to the year named.

Compared with the earlier reference years, there has been movement. In 2015, 4 houses and 7 flats were sold, in 2007 one of each. What the years in between looked like, these three reference years do not show. Nor do they reveal whether the number will keep rising.

For the calculation, this page therefore turns to Affoltern district. There the flat median was CHF 847,500 in 2015 and CHF 1,150,000 in 2025, 36 per cent higher.² That figure mixes sales from across the district. For your property in Rifferswil it is a yardstick for the tax, not a price.

It is a building block of the valuation in its own right. The cantonal model puts residential building land in Rifferswil at CHF 1,253 per square metre for 2025.⁷ Since 2015, when it was CHF 787, the model value has risen by 59.2 per cent. For 2025 the model typically ranges from CHF 867 to CHF 1,781.

Measured against the canton, Rifferswil is lower. There, residential building land sold for a median of CHF 1,742 per square metre in 2021 to 2025.⁷ One value is estimated, the other paid, so the comparison is only rough. An official house price per square metre of plot does not exist for Rifferswil in any of the three reference years.

The model describes undeveloped land, not your plot with its location. With a house, the building adds its age, condition and fit-out. Both parts are derived separately and backed with documents, so that you can check the figure.

Rifferswil levies the tax under a tariff that applies across the canton.¹ It runs from 10 per cent on the first CHF 4,000 of gain to 40 per cent above CHF 100,000. A reduction starts at 5 full years, 20 per cent in the example after 10.

From 20 full years the reduction reaches its maximum, 50 per cent: CHF 55,200 tax instead of CHF 88,320 here.¹ Bought more than 20 years ago? In that case the market value of 20 years ago may be used. Documented value-enhancing investments lower the gain; maintenance does not.

Buy a Swiss home after the sale and live in it, and the tax can be deferred. You must also have lived in the one you sold.⁹ If the replacement is cheaper than the proceeds, the difference is taxed at once. If it costs no more than the old purchase price and investments, there is no deferral. A deferred tax is not a waived one.