Work

The Political Economy of Housing Investment in the Short‐Term Rental Market: Insights from Urban Portugal

Year: 2022

Type: article

Abstract: Short‐term rentals (STRs) emerged as holiday accommodations, disrupting the hospitality industry in the decade before COVID‐19. Mainstream explanations for their growth revolved around digital tourism platforms like Airbnb as market disruptors and the sharing economy rationale. At the same time, critical scholars explored the capitalisation of greater rent gaps in urban central locations. However, these explanations are insufficient to explain the growth of STRs. We supplement them by building bridges between the urban political economy and the geographies of financialisation through the cases of Lisbon and Porto before the pandemic. The paper focuses on tourism‐induced housing investment, taking a closer look at the profile of investors in association with STR property managers in the context of the late‐entrepreneurial urban regime. We conclude that tourism development has allowed opportunities for housing financialisation through STR professionalisation, enhancing the allocation of interest‐bearing capital in tourism‐oriented real estate.

Source: Antipode

DOI: 10.1111/anti.12881

Authors: Jaime Jover, Agustín Cocola‐Gant

Institutions: The Graduate Center, CUNY, University of Leeds, University of Lisbon, City University of New York

Language: English

Topic: Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism

Subfield: Finance

Field: Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Sustainable cities and communities, Decent work and economic growth

Open Access status: green

Funders: European Commission, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia