Fields, D. orcid.org/0000-0001-6959-8803 (2022) Automated landlord: digital technologies and post-crisis financial accumulation. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 54 (1). ISSN 0308-518X
Abstract
This article centers the role of digital technologies in extending financial accumulation into new sectors of the U.S. housing market in the wake of the global financial crisis. I argue that while post-crisis market conditions provided an opportunity for large investors to acquire foreclosed single-family homes, convert them to rental housing, and roll out an new asset class based on bundled rent check, these conditions were insufficient on their own. Digital infrastructures coming to prominence since the 2008 crisis were required to automate core functions, such as rent collection and maintenance, in order to efficiently manage large, geographically dispersed property portfolios. New information technologies enabled investors to aggregate ownership of resources, extract income flows, and securely convey these flows to capital markets. Such advances have therefore given rise to the ‘automated landlord’, whereby the management of tenants and properties is increasingly not only mediated, but governed, by smartphones, digital platforms, and apps, and the data and analytics these devices and infrastructures gather and enable. This article shows how technological transformations actively participate in the ongoing, dynamic process of financial accumulation strategies, and contends that digital technologies therefore also comprise a crucial terrain of struggles over housing’s place in contemporary capitalism.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 The Author. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Keywords: | Financialization; rental housing; digital technologies; automation |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Geography (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number BRITISH ACADEMY (THE) SG153338 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 30 Apr 2019 09:20 |
Last Modified: | 17 May 2024 15:37 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/0308518X19846514 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:144623 |