With or without? For or against? Berlin’s housing policy and financial investors

This article investigates the relations between local housing policies and global corporate landlords in Berlin, Germany. While previous studies on the financialisation of housing markets have described the role of the state as facilitating and supporting the entry of institutional investors into the housing market, there is only limited understanding about the relationship between the local state and institutional investors after the latter have taken ground and established themselves in urban housing markets with a long-term perspective. Studying the local political arena in Berlin, we describe five distinct phases in which the relationship between financialised housing investors and the local state has undergone considerable twists and turns. We find that no stable partnerships between local authorities and financial investors have yet developed and identify a number of factors that explain the lack of engagement in building long-term collaborations on both sides. We argue that both local governments and financial investors are bound by complex and often contradictory logics that complicate their relations and create instability in partnership arrangements. A conflation of local ‘entrepreneurial’ policy, orientations and the interests of financial investors should therefore not be taken for granted. Rather, the Berlin case shows how achieving cooperation between these actors is unstable and challenging.