Corporate landlords and disruption through consolidation in post-crash Dublin’s private rental sector

Abstract

The growing literature on housing financialisation and particularly the financialisation of private rental sector residential housing offers nuanced analysis of how international financial actors increasingly shape housing markets and systems across the globe. Drawing inspiration from Maalsen’s (2022) work on the hack, this paper suggests that corporate landlord investment in the private rental sector can be understood as a process of disruptive consolidation. Disruptive consolidation is introduced as a useful conceptual lens for connecting a) the disrupted urban contexts which institutional investors target for speculation, b) the practices of consolidation that institutional investors pursue in establishing their portfolios as corporate landlords, and c) the ensuing disruptive impacts for housing policy, urban space, and tenants’ lives. While post-crash housing financialisation and the disruption of the private rental sector are often connected to the application of digital technologies to screen, surveille, and assetise tenants, I suggest that the digital/material dynamics of housing financialisation also afford ambivalent opportunities for both research and resistance. The paper applies a combination of desktop-based digital research methods to document how private rental sector consolidation has unfolded in Dublin and the role that the state has played in setting this dynamic in motion. I make use of digital research methods as a tactical appropriation of digital technologies to show how post-crash Dublin is an emblematic example of disruption through consolidation, demonstrating how this framework can be applied to connect urban and political economy approaches to housing and its financialisation. I conclude by briefly signposting how disruptive consolidation raises pressing questions for housing policy in Dublin and elsewhere.