?Getting back on track: pushing for inflation indexed housing loans in Argentina (2012-2017)?

SOCOLOFF, IVANA

Leuven

Congreso; The Real Estate/Financial Complex Conference; 2017

KU-LEUVEN

Although housing is a central aspect of financialization and there is a growing literature on the financialization of housing, forms of financialization in ?emerging economies? remain understudied. My presentation aims at contributing to filling this gap in the literature by taking the case of new inflation index loans in Argentina as a form of radical shifts going on in the housing finance and the housing system provision in the country. In this sense, and in line with current research that has shown that ?there are common trajectories within uneven and variegated financialization? (Aalbers, 2017), the case of Argentina seems to sustain the hypothesis that different institutional configurations are leading to an increase in mortgage debt and housing centered financialization. Consequently, Argentina?s relative disconnection from the ?financialization track? between 2001 and 2015 would not be at odds with recent drastic shifts in the countries? financial institutional framework that -as in the case of Spain- are part of its own path towards housing financialization. To analyze this process we take the case of middle size developers? corporation lobbying towards the diffusion of indexed loans, despite Argentina?s high inflation rate (30% aprox) and its dramatic history with indexed mortgage loans implemented between 1981 and 1983. Based mainly in Buenos Aires, a city excluded from previous national mortgage loan programs, these developers created strong ties with local major Macri (2007-2015) who became president in 2015. Analyzing qualitative and quantitative data, we describe the interlinked trajectories of these private-public agents as well as their reforms in the housing system provision and some of its spatial effects.