ABSTRACT
In the concluding chapter, the authors turn to their second narrative, the emergence of a hybrid real estate sector featuring new actors with ever more sophisticated digital technology and fueled by venture capital. The chapter describes this sector and discusses its implications for housing equality and insecurity. Although this sector may provide more options for owners and investors in residential housing, the ability to pick and choose between tenure options – short-term, long-term – adds to the existing insecurity of rental households as they confront rising rents and low vacancy rates. It remains to be seen whether short-term rentals (STRs) and the homesharing ideology can or will provide the financial stability and social support needed by renters and would-be-owners at a time when residential real estate is increasingly controlled by institutional owners, rents are out of reach and homeownership is not attainable by many.
