Why Real Estate Matters in Spatially Analyzing Inequalities of Wealth and Assets ? Interpreting Inequalities Induced by Price Inflation in France

Publication history : this conference paper was a presentation of the draft paper Le Goix R, Casanova Enault L, Bonneval L, et al. (2021) Housing (In)equity and the Spatial Dynamics of Homeownership in France: A Research Agenda. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie 112(1): 62-80.⟨10.1111/tesg.12460⟩. ⟨halshs-02916066⟩; International audience; The paper investigates socio-spatial inequalities induced by home price inflation. The novelty of the research is to provide an empirically-grounded theorization of socio-spatial inequalities derived through housing-finance regimes, while bridging political economy of markets, and spatial data analysis of inequalities. Since the mid-1990s, housing prices have increased faster than the income of buyers, thus an important driver of inequalities and vulnerability of indebted households. The paper presents some results of a research conducted on French housing markets. Some salient dynamics have been a continuous increase in property prices and an increase of homeownership, analyzed as resilient markets. We assume this situation derives from a shift towards an asset-based welfare model, yielding a regime linking ownership, credit affordability and house price, subsidized by the State and local governments. Elaborating on research conducted in Paris, Lyon and Avignon, we conduct a multi-scalar approach, bridging State policies, local governments’ policies and transactions by households. We also rely on spatial data describing 20 years of geotagged transactions (Chamber of the notaries), in a spatially integrated approach to measure spatial inequalities (price, income, credit, socio-occupational categories of sellers and buyers, to analyze unequal market access). Our main results show increased inequalities on property markets, by the means of variables s.a. price-to-income ratio and debt-to-price ratio. Metropolitan markets are therefore structured by inward and outward mobility: price inflation determines a dominant dynamic of professionalization (a rise of executives, intermediate occupation and employees), offsetting the outward mobility of workers and retired. We also highlight neighborhood trajectories with diverging patterns of appreciation, between local contexts of accumulation, and some suburbs with declining values, and more vulnerable households’ assets.