The financialization of Canadian multi-family rental housing: From trailer to tower

Abstract

After 20 years of disinvestment, new financial vehicles began targeting Canada’s multi-family apartment sector in the 1990s, with the first Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) declaring “Apartments make money!” on the cover of their 1999 report. This paper details the financialization of multi-family rental, tracing how REITs grew from owning zero to 10% of Canada’s apartments, while “financialized” landlords comprise nine of the ten biggest landlords. I argue that neoliberal restructuring, government policy, and financial innovations created conditions for profitable reinvestment. This reinvestment is transforming the sector, building-by-building, into a global asset class. Meanwhile, in each suite, tenants are exposed to the logics of finance capital, in which “repositioning” strategies generate profits via dispossession. This paper traces the expansion of financialized landlords across a nation and down the urban hierarchy, from gentrified neighborhoods, to mobile home parks, to northern resource towns—finding that penetration is more prominent in jurisdictions with weaker rent controls. I propose a typology of geographic-investment strategies, in which “core,” “value-add,” and “opportunistic” investment strategies are applied in major markets, marginal geographies, and resource-oriented communities. This trend is understood as one with negative impacts on housing justice, affordability, and patterns of social and spatial inequality.

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