The New Waves of Financialisation: Vultures and REITs

This chapter describes and details the wave of global real estate and vulture investment in distressed assets and loans, as the second wave of financialisation of residential property (housing), following the first wave of financial market and equity involvement in mortgage lending and securitisation from the late 1990s to 2008. It then defines and details a third wave of financialisation is evident in the post-2010 period as global institutional investors have increasingly invested in the private rental ‘build-to-rent’ sector. This third wave is a further development in the restructuring of the finance–real estate relationship through the increased role of large-scale corporate finance and global private equity funds (pension funds, hedge funds, wealth funds, shell funds, private equity) in the provision of rental residential property. It shows how housing and land is providing another important vehicle for investing the global ‘wall of money’ searching for higher returns in a context of reduced profitability and rising risk in the wider ‘real’ economy. It details how the Irish state’s strategy to overcome the global property and financial crash of 2008 and achieve the recovery of financial institutions and the wider economy was based on the sale of ‘toxic’ and ‘non-performing’ loans and associated land and property, at a considerable discount, to international ‘vulture funds’ and property investors via the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) and domestic banks. The strategy was based on a deepening of the financialisation of the Irish housing (and wider property) system.