ABSTRACT
Cities produce 50" of gross domestic product that manifests in increasing competition to attract real estate (RE) investment and development. Latin America is reportedly the most unequal region in the world. Policymakers, academics and experts are concerned over the widening gap between Latin American countries and developed economies. This chapter provides a brief summary of region's socio-political background while explaining how informality spread and social housing debt mounted through decades of neglect in the selected countries. It reviews process of market liberalization, building the way out of recession and main findings and their implications for economic development. The decentralization of planning and lack of coordination across different government levels is described to provide fertile ground for high-end residential investment, which was reported as the most profitable RE business in Latin America. The chapter examines question of inequality in the residential RE sector in Latin America.
