made up of unrelated persons, and 25 who are either institutionalized or live in another type of collective housing. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.28%. , the construction rate of new housing units was 8.1 new units per 1000 residents. there were 952 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was the 6 room apartment of which there were 249. There were 11 single room apartments and 249 apartments with six or more rooms. the average price to rent an average apartment in Bichelsee-Balterswil was 970.05 Swiss francs (CHF) per month (US$780, £440, €620 approx. exchange rate from 2000). The average rate for a one-room apartment was 247.00 CHF (US$200, £110, €160), a two-room apartment was about 619.44 CHF (US$500, £280, €400), a three-room apartment was about 856.95 CHF (US$690, £390, €550) and a six or more room apartment cost an average of 1497.87 CHF (US$1200, £670, €960). The average apartment price in Bichelsee-Balterswil was 86.9% of the national average of 1116 CHF. In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 38.77% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP (28.22%), the SP (6.44%) and the FDP (6.30%). In the federal election, a total of 913 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 49.3%. The historical population is given in the following table: Economy , Bichelsee-Balterswil had an unemployment rate of 1.28%. , there were 99 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 43 businesses involved in this sector. 426 people are employed in the secondary sector and there are 42 businesses in this sector. 266 people are employed in the tertiary sector, with 76 businesses in this sector. there were 1,597 workers who lived in the municipality. Of these, 776 or about 48.6% of the residents worked outside Bichelsee-Balterswil while 350 people commuted into the municipality for work. There were a total of 1,171 jobs (of at least 6 hours per week) in the municipality. Of the working population, 10% used public transportation to get to work, and 49.8% used a private car. Religion From the , 1,141 or 50.1% were Roman Catholic, while 787 or 34.6% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there is 1 individual who belongs to the Orthodox Church, and there are 80 individuals (or about 3.51% of the population) who