It was a great pleasure to co-organize a seminar on “Multiple-property investment in times of COVID-19” together with Chris Lennartz, PBL Netherlands, and Cody Hochstenbach, Universiteit Amsterdam. The seminar built on a special issue on the rise of multiple property ownership (available here) that we put together in the International Journal of Housing Policy prior to COVID-19. The aim of the seminar was to understand how the pandemic will affect the dynamics we identified there. We had a set of super-interesting presentations. I’m posting the seminar call and the list of participants below. The seminar was part of a seminar series organized by the European Network for Housing Research on the impacts of COVID-19 on housing.

ENHR online seminar “Multiple-property investment in times of Covid-19”
Moderators: Christian Lennartz, Justin Kadi and Cody Hochstenbach

Investments in multiple properties – i.e. buying additional houses for the purpose of residential lettings, tourism accommodation, or holiday homes – have been booming in the past decade in most housing markets across the globe. Residential property was perceived as a safe, often long-term investment with (comparatively) high direct returns. Covid-19 may have put an end to the growth of private and institutional investments alike: on the supply side it appears that bank lending for (further) property investments is under more scrutiny, while increasing unemployment rates and falling real incomes on the demand side have increased the risk of rent arrears and rising vacancy rates. However, recent experiences have also shown that the reluctance to invest in housing during economic crises might be a temporary state; after all, the boom in multiple-property investments in the previous decade has started well before the end of the Global Financial Crisis, with local as well as international investors taking advantage of low purchase prices (relative to net rental income). Might this time be different? How have investors in different countries acted (so far) during the current economic malaise? What can we expect from them in the (near) future? And how do these developments impact local, national and global housing markets as a whole?

Speakers

Christian Lennartz – brief introduction to the seminar

Matthijs Korevaar – The Total Return and Risk to Residential Real Estate

Zac Taylor – In Real Estate We Trust? COVID-19, Housing Crisis and the Future of Residential Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)

Hang Kei Ho – Inside the world of middle-class Hong Kong transnational property investors

Cody Hochstenbach – Resurgent Landlordism in a Student City

Jelke Bosma – Airbnb in Berlin and Amsterdam, before and during the Covid-19 pandemic

Justin Kadi – Short-term Rentals, Housing Markets and COVID-19