IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v54y2022i1p160-181.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Automated landlord: Digital technologies and post-crisis financial accumulation

Author

Listed:
  • Desiree Fields

Abstract

This article centers the role of digital technologies in extending financial accumulation into new sectors of the US housing market in the wake of the global financial crisis. I argue that while post-crisis market conditions provided an opportunity for large investors to acquire foreclosed single-family homes, convert them to rental housing, and roll out an new asset class based on bundled rent checks, these conditions were insufficient on their own. Digital innovations coming to prominence since the 2008 crisis were required to automate core functions, such as rent collection and maintenance, in order to efficiently manage large, geographically dispersed property portfolios. New information technologies enabled investors to aggregate ownership of resources, extract income flows, and securely convey these flows to capital markets. Such advances have, therefore, given rise to the “automated landlord†, whereby the management of tenants and properties is increasingly not only mediated, but governed, by smartphones, digital platforms, and apps, and the data and analytics these devices and infrastructures gather and enable. This article shows how technological transformations actively participate in the ongoing, dynamic process of financial accumulation strategies, and contends that digital technologies, therefore, also comprise a crucial terrain of struggles over housing’s place in contemporary capitalism.

Suggested Citation

  • Desiree Fields, 2022. "Automated landlord: Digital technologies and post-crisis financial accumulation," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 54(1), pages 160-181, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:54:y:2022:i:1:p:160-181
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X19846514
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X19846514
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X19846514?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zaloom, Caitlin, 2006. "Out of the Pits," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226978130, Febrero.
    2. Manuel B. Aalbers, 2017. "The Variegated Financialization of Housing," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(4), pages 542-554, July.
    3. Marion Fourcade & Kieran Healy, 2013. "Classification situations: Life-chances in the neoliberal era," Post-Print hal-03470535, HAL.
    4. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6cbt691h0h8o9q5rf0apko0pda is not listed on IDEAS
    5. MacKenzie, Donald, 2009. "Making things the same: Gases, emission rights and the politics of carbon markets," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(3-4), pages 440-455, April.
    6. Fourcade, Marion & Healy, Kieran, 2013. "Classification situations: Life-chances in the neoliberal era," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 559-572.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xie, Chengyuan & Huang, Lu, 2024. "How to drive sustainable economic development: The role of fintech, natural resources, and social vulnerability," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    2. Alvarez León, Luis F. & Aoyama, Yuko, 2022. "Industry emergence and market capture: The rise of autonomous vehicles," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    3. Dick Oosthuizen, 2023. "Institutional Housing Investors and the Great Recession," Working Papers 23-22, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

    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. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/4ff88coju39nk8b11b5ghfc1ff is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Olivier Godechot, 2019. "Conclusion: What finance manufactures," Post-Print hal-03393812, HAL.
    3. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/4ff88coju39nk8b11b5ghfc1ff is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Ejiogu, Amanze & Ambituuni, Ambisisi & Ejiogu, Chibuzo, 2021. "Accounting for accounting’s role in the neoliberalization processes of social housing in England: A Bourdieusian perspective," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    5. Vargha, Zsuzsanna, 2015. "Note from the editor: Insurance after markets," economic sociology. perspectives and conversations, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, vol. 17(1), pages 2-5.
    6. Kracman, Kimberly, 2022. "Code as constitution: The negotiation of a uniform accounting code for U.S. railway corporations and the moral justification of stakeholder claims on wealth," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    7. Dean Curran & Alan Smart, 2021. "Data-driven governance, smart urbanism and risk-class inequalities: Security and social credit in China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(3), pages 487-506, February.
    8. Lacan, Laure & Lazarus, Jeanne, 2015. "A relationship and a practice: On the French sociology of credit," MaxPo Discussion Paper Series 15/1, Max Planck Sciences Po Center on Coping with Instability in Market Societies (MaxPo).
    9. Cooper, Christine, 2015. "Entrepreneurs of the self: The development of management control since 1976," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 14-24.
    10. Mejias, Ulises A. & Couldry, Nick, 2019. "Datafication," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 8(4), pages 1-10.
    11. Waitkus, Nora & Savage, Mike & Toft, Maren, 2024. "Wealth and class analysis: exploitation, closure and exclusion," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 124635, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Amy J. Cohen & Jason Jackson, 2022. "Governing through markets: Multinational firms in the bazaar economy," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(2), pages 409-426, April.
    13. Pinzur, David, 2016. "Making the grade: infrastructural semiotics and derivative market outcomes on the Chicago Board of Trade and New Orleans Cotton Exchange, 1856–1909," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 102988, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Berlinski, Elise & Morales, Jérémy, 2024. "Digital technologies and accounting quantification: The emergence of two divergent knowledge templates," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    15. Gilbert, Christine & Guénin, Henri, 2024. "The COVID-19 crisis and massive public debts: What should we expect?," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    16. Gilbert, Christine & Everett, Jeff & de Castro Casa Nova, Silvia Pereira, 2024. "Patriarchy, capitalism, and accounting: A herstory," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    17. Elliott, Rebecca, 2021. "Insurance and the temporality of climate ethics: accounting for climate change in US flood insurance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 107925, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Alicia Eads & Laura Tach & Lauren Griffin, 2023. "Intra-household Financial Inequality, Gender Equality, and Marital Dissolution," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 373-393, June.
    19. Kornberger, Martin & Pflueger, Dane & Mouritsen, Jan, 2017. "Evaluative infrastructures: Accounting for platform organization," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 79-95.
    20. Waitkus, Nora & Savage, Mike & Toft, Maren, 2024. "Wealth and class analysis: exploitation, closure and exclusion," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 124534, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    21. Nappert, Pier-Luc & Plante, Maude, 2023. "The assetization of baseball players: Instrumentalizing promise with signing bonuses and human capital contracts," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    22. Siler, Kyle & Larivière, Vincent, 2022. "Who games metrics and rankings? Institutional niches and journal impact factor inflation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(10).

    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:sae:envira:v:54:y:2022:i:1:p:160-181. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.