Seeing Residential Vacancy Like a Debt Servicer

This presentation examines residential vacancy as a dynamic phenomenon, focusing on the processes through which it is produced, maintained, or removed. Drawing on desk and field research in Thessaloniki, the analysis frames vacancy as a social relation embedded within the city’s evolving property regime. By centering debt servicers in the discussion, the study highlights their transformative influence in recalibrating property markets and reshaping urban housing dynamics in the wake of economic turmoil. Financiers and debt servicers emerge as pivotal actors orchestrating vacancy removal, their actions guided by imperatives of profit maximization. These strategies, shaped by prevailing market conditions and state policies, reinforce an emphasis on elevating housing’s exchange value over its use value. While debt servicers frequently dominate the property landscape, they operate within a network of diverse actors, ranging from small landlords to agile brokers. To illuminate these dynamics, the study leverages the electronic national land registry platform in Greece, employing this underutilized resource as a novel tool for tracking property transfers. By reframing housing vacancy as a manifestation of social relations rooted in specific urban and temporal contexts, the research challenges static interpretations of vacancy and foregrounds the dynamic, interconnected processes that drive its production, maintenance, and removal. In doing so, the study contributes to critical debates on property and finance, illustrating how the roles of servicers as mediators and strategists are reshaping Thessaloniki’s property regime and influencing urban housing dynamics on a broader scale.