Subordinate housing financialization: tracing global institutional investment into Lisbon’s urban development

Abstract

This article contributes to scholarship on housing financialization and core–periphery relations by exploring the role of transnational institutional investors in housing production in Lisbon. Using a “follow-the-money” approach, I trace current investments into large-scale housing developments, finding a dominance of capital-rich institutional actors originating primarily in core economies. The resulting developments are largely build-to-sell projects, which are framed as a necessary response to existing housing demands. I argue that such investment reflects and reinforces subordinate financialization through housing, as Lisbon’s status as a city of the semi-periphery dependent on outside investment provides fertile ground for investors to build projects to fit their criteria. This in turn produces uneven development on the urban scale. Using an independently-built database of projects and investors along with qualitative methods, the paper connects global relations of financial subordination to housing development, and adds to our understanding of institutional investors–increasingly powerful actors in real estate.