Bringing Nuance to Real Estate Financialisation: Insights From Brazil

What the paper says

Real estate has re‐emerged as an object of inquiry in geography and urban studies in recent years, particularly through the lens of the financialisation debate. The literature on financialisation has extensively documented how finance has reshaped real estate markets, often prioritising short‐term rent extraction in ways that can undermine long‐term planning goals and pose risks to fundamental rights such as housing and access to urban space. However, by placing emphasis on the diffusion of financial market logics and interests, much of this literature has overlooked the institutionally specific ways in which real estate markets are shaped, mediated or contested across diverse contexts. This article builds on existing literature on Brazil to offer a more nuanced perspective on the analysis of real estate markets and their financialisation. While recognising the growing influence of financial motives and actors in shaping real estate production, we argue that this process unfolds unevenly, is refracted through local institutional and political dynamics, and coexists with inherited financial infrastructures and alternative forms of real estate provision. We conclude that an institutionally grounded perspective is essential to capture the complex and context‐dependent nature of real estate market transformations in the Global South and beyond.