Hyper-Commodified Housing? Insights from European research

Event Date: Tuesday, 18 August
Seminar: 4:00pm – 5:00pm
Venue: F10 Level 1 Law Lounge Room 113

Seminar Overview

Housing systems around the world have undergone dramatic change since the Global Financial Crisis, under combined processes of financialisation, assetisation and platformisation. Real estate and capital accumulation have come to dominate housing provision – a process that Madden and Marcuse have named ‘hyper-commodification’. One example of this hyper-commodification is the rise of purpose built short to mid-term rental catering primarily to young expatriate workers. Digitally enabled and managed by professional companies, these projects are being promoted across Europe as a market response to the affordability crisis, targeting students and young urban professionals. With specific reference to Luxembourg, a small European country with a liberal housing regime, the talk examines the emergence of hyper-commodified housing products. Despite benefiting from state support, the new developments represent a precarious form of rental housing; little more than an aspirational version of informally produced alternatives.

Speaker Bio

Constance Uyttebrouck is a research associate at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER), where she leads the FNR-funded HypeRent project and contributes to the Housing Observatory, a longstanding collaboration with the Luxembourg Housing Ministry. Her research interests relate to (shared) housing provision for young people, housing hyper-commodification, mixed-use development, institutional frameworks and urban governance. She is actively involved in the European Network for Housing Research as a co-coordinator of the Housing and Young People working group, and she has just been appointed as a member of the ENHR coordination committee.

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