ABSTRACT
The fourth chapter is an examination of the ways in which major housing programs in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Chile were designed to meet important social challenges, producing millions of housing units, and yet after several financial crises resulted in vacant housing stock. It then turns to the impact of financial instruments in Latin America on the housing industry in the last two decades, showing how it drove the over-production of units and later led to the imposition of restrictions on the finance system, which provides a stark warning as to the limits of such strategies.
