The Edges of Owner-Occupation versus Rentier Capitalism

Over the past half century, housing systems have been reconfigured through processes variously labelled financialization, assetization and rentierization. Unevenly advanced by successive rounds of regulatory, fiscal, infrastructural, technological and digital shifts, these have all worked to enhance housing as an asset class, grow its value and maximize returns. They have also added affordability stress without greatly augmenting the quantity, quality or use value of the stock. This has turned housing into hotly contested territory – a platform on which struggles for life chances and resources increasingly play out. Interrogating the edges of owner-occupation – an expanding cross-tenure zone of housing precarity – this paper weighs up two scenarios: the emergence of asset-class conflict among home occupiers; the confrontation between housing activism and rentier capitalism. Anticipating sufficient solidarity to claim a fairer housing future, we consider what might be possible and how to achieve it.