Housing financialisation and the creation of homelessness in Ireland

Abstract

There is growing interest in the impacts of financialisation on housing affordability and insecurity in the private rental sector, particularly financialisation 2.0 and the increased role of global real estate funds. This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of these impacts on housing systems and housing marginalisation by conceptually and empirically exploring the relationship between the financialisation of rental housing and homelessness in the post-crash era. We identify the processes and pathways by which this has unfolded in Ireland. Our findings point to the financialisation of the Private Rental Sector (PRS) in Ireland, and particularly the emergence of institutional landlords, playing an important direct and indirect contributory role in the structural housing factors that create homelessness, including reduced affordability, rising housing insecurity, displacement and evictions. We argue there is a need for greater attention to be paid to the evolving real estate-state-finance relationship, particularly the central role of the state, conceptualised here through pathways and processes of action and inaction, in developing and facilitating financialisation.