Marginal housing financialisation in Thessaloniki: Rent gaps,tourism and the hesitance of institutional investors

Abstract

This article contributes to research on variegated housing financialisation, focusing on the different types of investors active in real estate markets, using the case of Thessaloniki after the economic crisis. Overindebtedness and property foreclosures, following the structural adjustment programmes of the Greek economy, created expectations for the financialisation of housing by actors of various sizes and types, ranging from financial institutions and distressed debt funds specialising in the non-performing loans (NPLs) and real estate–owned (REO) markets to real estate investment trusts (REITs) and real estate developers. Nonetheless, the article argues that unlike major cities in the global north, where the process has been driven by transnational corporate landlords, in secondary cities, financialisation is advanced at a marginal scale by small- and medium-scale actors, building on and enforcing touristification and gentrification. We show that in the case of Thessaloniki, state-led urban interventions and the professionalisation of short-term rentals played a key role in this process, which is reflected by the profile and type of investors, while the emergence of medium-term rentals during the COVID-19 pandemic led to the further entwining of gentrification and touristification.