IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jcopol/v46y2023i4d10.1007_s10603-023-09548-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Real Property Transactions in the Network Society: Platform Real Estate, Housing Hactivism, and the Re-scaling of Public and Private Power

Author

Listed:
  • M. L. Roark

    (University of Tulsa College of Law
    University of Pretoria)

  • L. Fox O’Mahony

    (University of Pretoria
    University of Essex)

Abstract

Technology is rapidly transforming the landscape of land ownership and housing transactions, creating new types of consumer risk and new regulatory challenges. As markets, legal systems, and housing consumers navigate the new opportunities and risks of “platform real estate” (or “PropTech”), the underlying land laws, policies, and practices that produce the material context and legal framework for real property transactions, and against which consumer risk and regulation must be understood, require “re-scaling.” In this article, we offer a theoretical framework for this re-scaling project, drawing on our earlier work to develop Resilient Property Theory (RPT) for analysing complex, large-scale property questions using methods that—in a departure from liberal property theories—pay attention to the public role of the state. Against a backdrop in which narratives of private property law defined real property transactions as “private realm” activities, while consumer law and policy provided the vehicle for state-backed regulation of specifically defined transactions based on a risk-based approach, this article brings the state back into view to reflect on new configurations of risk in consumer housing transactions. In the de-materialized realm of the “network society,” networks, platforms, and innovations are recalibrating housing transactions. In this data-driven world, land transactions are financialized, depersonalized, and increasingly remote from the materiality of land and the consumption of housing. As new capabilities in digital land transaction systems reach back into the underlying law of ownership, official (state), insider (global capital markets), and outsider (social movement activists) networks have evolved to leverage their relative positionality. This article uses techniques developed in RPT to examine the re-scaling of risk in real property and housing transactions through digital network technologies. We consider the implications of resilience needs in the network society in relation to the public sovereignty of the state, the private sovereignty of land ownership, and practices of resistance to public and private sovereignty through “housing hacktivism.” Finally, we argue that conceptions of consumer vulnerability and risk and embedded ideas about the relationships between private property law and consumer law and policy in real property transactions must evolve to take account of these effects.

Suggested Citation

  • M. L. Roark & L. Fox O’Mahony, 2023. "Real Property Transactions in the Network Society: Platform Real Estate, Housing Hactivism, and the Re-scaling of Public and Private Power," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 445-463, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jcopol:v:46:y:2023:i:4:d:10.1007_s10603-023-09548-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s10603-023-09548-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10603-023-09548-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10603-023-09548-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Marcuse, 2009. "From critical urban theory to the right to the city," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2-3), pages 185-197, June.
    2. Mara Ferreri & Romola Sanyal, 2022. "Digital informalisation: rental housing, platforms, and the management of risk," Housing Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(6), pages 1035-1053, July.
    3. Markus K. Brunnermeier, 2009. "Deciphering the Liquidity and Credit Crunch 2007-2008," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 77-100, Winter.
    4. Hans Pruijt, 2003. "Is the institutionalization of urban movements inevitable? A comparison of the opportunities for sustained squatting in New York City and Amsterdam," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 133-157, March.
    5. DiNatale, Sadie & Lewis, Rebecca & Parker, Robert, 2018. "Short-term rentals in small cities in Oregon: Impacts and regulations," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 407-423.
    6. Alexei Alexandrov, 2015. "Anti-Competitive Interconnection: the effects of the elasticity of consumers' expectations and the shape of the network effects function," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(1), pages 74-99, March.
    7. Hans Pruijt, 2013. "The Logic of Urban Squatting," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(1), pages 19-45, January.
    8. Zhenpeng Zou, 2020. "Examining the Impact of Short-Term Rentals on Housing Prices in Washington, DC: Implications for Housing Policy and Equity," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(2), pages 269-290, March.
    9. Stuart Hodkinson & Paul Chatterton, 2006. "Autonomy in the city?," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 305-315, December.
    10. Louise Overton & Lorna Fox O’Mahony, 2018. "Stakeholder Conceptions of Later-Life Consumer Vulnerability in the Financial Services Industry: Beyond Financial Capability?," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 273-295, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Miguel A. Martínez, 2014. "How Do Squatters Deal with the State? Legalization and Anomalous Institutionalization in Madrid," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 646-674, March.
    2. Lila Leontidou, 2010. "Urban Social Movements in ‘Weak’ Civil Societies: The Right to the City and Cosmopolitan Activism in Southern Europe," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(6), pages 1179-1203, May.
    3. Esin Özdemir & Ayda Eraydin, 2017. "Fragmentation in Urban Movements: The Role of Urban Planning Processes," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 727-748, September.
    4. Joost de Moor, 2016. "Practicing Openness: Investigating the Role of Everyday Decision Making in the Production of Squatted Space," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 410-424, March.
    5. Cesare Di Feliciantonio, 2017. "Spaces of the Expelled as Spaces of the Urban Commons? Analysing the Re-emergence of Squatting Initiatives in Rome," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 708-725, September.
    6. Morgana G Martins Krieger & Marlei Pozzebon & Lauro Gonzalez, 2021. "When social movements collaborate with the state towards the right to the city: Unveiling compromises and conflicts," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(5), pages 1115-1139, August.
    7. Helen X. H. Bao & Saul Shah, 2020. "The Impact of Home Sharing on Residential Real Estate Markets," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-18, July.
    8. Esin Özdemir & Tuna Tasan-Kok, 2019. "Planners’ role in accommodating citizen disagreement: The case of Dutch urban planning," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(4), pages 741-759, March.
    9. Kelly, Robert & O'Toole, Conor, 2016. "Lending Conditions and Loan Default: What Can We Learn From UK Buy-to-Let Loans?," Research Technical Papers 04/RT/16, Central Bank of Ireland.
    10. Hollander, Hylton & Liu, Guangling, 2016. "Credit spread variability in the U.S. business cycle: The Great Moderation versus the Great Recession," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 37-52.
    11. Xin Huang & Hao Zhou & Haibin Zhu, 2012. "Systemic Risk Contributions," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 42(1), pages 55-83, October.
    12. Merrill, Craig B. & Nadauld, Taylor D. & Stulz, Rene M. & Sherlund, Shane, 2012. "Did Capital Requirements and Fair Value Accounting Spark Fire Sales in Distressed Mortgage-Backed Securities?," Working Papers 13-01, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    13. Goedde-Menke, Michael & Langer, Thomas & Pfingsten, Andreas, 2014. "Impact of the financial crisis on bank run risk – Danger of the days after," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 522-533.
    14. Ernest Dautovic, 2019. "Has Regulatory Capital Made Banks Safer? Skin in the Game vs Moral Hazard," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 19.03, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    15. Milne, Alistair, 2014. "Distance to default and the financial crisis," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 26-36.
    16. Hertrich Markus, 2019. "A Novel Housing Price Misalignment Indicator for Germany," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 20(4), pages 759-794, December.
    17. Bratis, Theodoros & Laopodis, Nikiforos T. & Kouretas, Georgios P., 2015. "Creditor moral hazard during the EMU debt crisis," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 122-135.
    18. Jeanne, Olivier & Korinek, Anton, 2019. "Managing credit booms and busts: A Pigouvian taxation approach," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 2-17.
    19. Efraim Benmelech & Ralf R. Meisenzahl & Rodney Ramcharan, 2017. "The Real Effects of Liquidity During the Financial Crisis: Evidence from Automobiles," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(1), pages 317-365.
    20. Maya Eden, 2017. "Misallocation and the Distribution of Global Volatility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(2), pages 592-622, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jcopol:v:46:y:2023:i:4:d:10.1007_s10603-023-09548-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.