ABSTRACT
Given the ubiquitous view of family decline and domestic privatism accompanied by the near-universal commodification of housing, it might seem odd to associate family networks with housing wealth. In Britain the more popular image is one of sovereign individual consumers dealing mainly through contract with a host of legal and financial companies, making strategic housing-investment decisions and winning unusually large returns to their capital-on their own. In formal terms this is precisely what appears to happen, particularly if the data used are the snapshot survey or yearly return. But the process and organisation of accumulation remains hidden. This imagery goes uncontested partly as a result of disciplinary boundaries and taboos. Housing finance, for example, remains ‘culture free’ and family studies tend to focus on poverty and inequality rather more than on equity and wealth. But there is sufficient evidence to indicate the growing functional significance of family involvement in accumulation processes as well as the disposal of housing wealth. In order to understand these processes we have to understand the cultural and organisational nature of kinship and informal networks.
