A/HRC/34/51 landlord in the country.25 Other major institutional players invested $20 billion to purchase approximately 200,000 single-family homes in the United States between 2012 and mid2013. 26 With the recovery of the United States housing market, Blackstone and other private equity firms have sought to take advantage of other buying opportunities in Europe and Asia. Cushman and Wakefield estimated that there was over €541 billion of distressed real estate debt in Europe in 2015, much of it held by public asset management companies such as the National Asset Management Agency in Ireland and the Sociedad de Gestión de Activos Procedentes de la Reestructuración Bancaria (company for the management of assets proceeding from the restructuring of the banking system) in Spain. The vast majority of that debt is being purchased by giant private equity firms. 27 28. Massive investment of capital into housing markets and rising prices should not be confused with the production of housing and the benefits that accrue from it. The bulk of real estate transactions of that sort do not create needed housing or long-term secure employment. When rented homes or mortgages are owned by remote investors, money mostly flows out of communities and simply creates greater global concentration of wealth. The new corporate interest in developing rental properties from homes sold in foreclosures has also raised concerns that there is a greater incentive to pursue foreclosures rather than modify a loan agreement to avoid an unnecessary eviction. 28 The proliferation of foreign and domestic investment in short-term rental properties, such as for Airbnb, in countries like Portugal, has contributed to escalating prices of housing and changes to the make-up of neighbourhoods, without creating affordable housing or other benefits for the local population. 29. What is so stark about the pouring of those vast amounts of money into housing is that hardly any of it is directed towards ameliorating the insufferable housing conditions in which millions live. If even a portion of those amounts was directed towards affordable housing and access to credit for people in need of it, target 11.1 of the Sustainable Development Goals, to ensure adequate housing for all by 2030, would be well within reach. 29 Financialization under current regimes, however, creates the opposite effect: unaccountable markets that do not respond to housing need, and urban centres that become the sole preserve of those with wealth. C. Dehumanized housing: from social use to commodity value 30. A significant portion of investor-owned homes are simply left empty. In Melbourne, Australia, for example, 82,000 or one fifth of investor-owned units lie empty. 30 In the 25 26 27 28 29 30 Joe Beswick and others, “Speculating on London’s housing future: the rise of global corporate landlords in ‘post-crisis’ urban landscapes”, City, vol. 20, No. 2 (March 2016), pp. 323-325. Right to the City Alliance, “Renting from Wall Street: Blackstone’s invitation homes in Los Angeles and Riverside”, July 2014, p. 9. Available from http://homesforall.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/LA-Riverside-Blackstone-Report-071514.pdf. Debt and Development Coalition Ireland, “From Puerto Rico to the Dublin docklands”, p. 9. See Sarah Edelman, Julia Gordon and David Sanchez, “When Wall Street buys Main Street: the implications of single-family rental bonds for tenants and housing markets” (Washington, D.C, Centre for American Progress, 2014). Available from www.americanprogress.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/02/WallStMainSt_Report.pdf. Jonathan Woetzel and others, “Tackling the world’s affordable housing challenge” (McKinsey Global Institute Report, October 2014), p. 8. Available from www.mckinsey.com/globalthemes/urbanization/tackling-the-worlds-affordable-housing-challenge. Catherine Cashmore, “Speculative vacancies 8: the empty properties ignored by statistics” (Prosper Australia, 2015), p. 5. Available from www.prosper.org.au/wpcontent/uploads/2015/12/11Final_Speculative-Vacancies-2015-1.pdf. 9