When homes earn more than jobs: the rentierization of the Australian housing market

Abstract

This article develops the concept of housing market ‘rentierization’ to describe the shift in the treatment of housing away from its use as a consumption good to an asset from which economic rent can be extracted. Rentierization encompasses, but goes beyond, the ‘financialisation of housing’ that has been the focus of attention in the recent political economy of housing literature as it involves changes across land and housing market policy, fiscal-policy as well as financial policy spheres. We examine Australia as a canonical example of rentierization, conducting a historical case study that examines the returns to land and housing over the 20th century and trace its roots to developments that preceded the financial liberalization of the 1980s, including the privatization of public housing in the 1960s and 70s.