From Home To Asset: How Variegated Landlords Extract Rent from Tenants in Barcelona

Since 2008, Barcelona has witnessed a growing tenant population alongside increased speculative investment in rental housing, pioneered by investment funds. While much literature focuses on institutional investors, the reality of Barcelona’s rental market is dominated by a wide variety of landlord types—ranging from individuals to corporate actors. This article argues that the dynamics taking place are better understood through “assetisation.” Unlike financialization, which emphasizes the dominance of financial actors, assetisation captures how diverse types of landlords increasingly adopt asset management strategies to extract rents. Crucially, it shows that assetisation homogenizes landlord behaviour across these varied landlords. Intermediaries and property managers play a central role in driving this convergence, framing properties as assets requiring continuous value enhancement and standardizing management practices to ensure incremental rents. Drawing on ethnographic analysis of tenant-landlord conflicts and the resistance efforts of the Barcelona Tenants’ Union, the article highlights key techniques of assetization, including the imposition of shorter lease terms to enable frequent rent increases and the use of intermediaries to distance landlords from tenants, undermining tenants’ ability to negotiate terms. Ultimately, assetization involves not passive rent-seeking but active managerial labour aimed at accelerating tenant turnover to enhance property values, eroding tenants’ stability and security.