Identifying the Socio-Spatial Logics of Foreclosed Housing Accumulated by Large Private Landlords in Post-Crisis Catalan Cities

Aaron Gutiérrez,Antoni Domènech

doi:10.3390/ijgi9050313

Aaron Gutiérrez, Antoni Domènech

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi9050313

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Abstract

The article analyses the socio-spatial logic behind the accumulation of foreclosed housing in the hands of large private landlords in the neighbourhoods of all the Catalan cities with over 100,000 inhabitants. Spatial regression and clustering techniques are applied to identify the determinants of the concentration patterns of 10,725 housing units in these cities. The socioeconomic variables, such as income level, percentage of foreign population, level of studies or percentage of unemployed residents, are identified as key explanatory factors of clustering of foreclosures in working-class neighbourhoods. A high presence of previously mortgaged homes is a variable especially relevant in the case of working-class neighbourhoods, but it has no incidence in the case of the medium-high class neighbourhoods. Our findings provide a detailed urban geography of the housing accumulated by banks which, at the same time, correspond to areas in which the vulture funds are focusing their business in the present and in the forthcoming years. New evidences of the spatial logic of the housing crisis and detailed information for the understanding of the new scenarios that have emerged during the post-crisis phase are revealed.

Highlights

Throughout the 1990s and a large part of the first decade of the 21st century, Spain experienced a clear intensification in the tendency for extensive and expansive urbanisation
The decade following the global financial crisis has been characterised by a fall in housing prices, the mortgage crisis, and the proliferation of evictions
We focused on housing acquired via mortgage foreclosure and eviction of former residents

Summary

Introduction

Throughout the 1990s and a large part of the first decade of the 21st century, Spain experienced a clear intensification in the tendency for extensive and expansive urbanisation. In the worst years of the property bubble (1997–2007), it maintained an unprecedented rhythm of new-housing construction [1,2,3] It registered the highest rate of new housing construction in Europe. The hypertrophy of housing production experienced during this period, which was fed by the housing-price bubble and by government policies effectively promoting it, culminated in a historic expansion in mortgage credit and family indebtedness [6,7]. The decade following the global financial crisis has been characterised by a fall in housing prices, the mortgage crisis, and the proliferation of evictions. These processes have been accompanied and fuelled by policies of austerity and the rescue of the banking system. During this period the Spanish property market has passed through a complete “boom and bust” cycle, typical of the urbanisation of capital [4,8]

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