Everyday, members of the European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and the City witness the manifestations of the housing crisis and feel the need to address its systemic causes. We know that we must recognize how finance capital has gained a tremendous advantage from the transformation of commodified housing into an object of financial speculation to a larger extent than before.
This process is part of the financialization of housing alongside the increasing dominance of financial actors in the production and exchange of housing and related changes to the market, state, and households. But we can also acknowledge that the transformation of housing into a financial asset does not mean that capital accumulation via exploitation does not continue to operate in the production of housing.
While observing how capital is accumulated through housing and how financialization affects homeownership, private rental housing, and even social housing, we should not forget to ask how this process is related to other forms of capital accumulation in contemporary capitalism.