Rising rents, shrinking access: How investment reshaped global housing

By Esra Tekin

ISTANBUL (AA) - In cities across the world, housing values are soaring and investment activity is growing, but access to affordable homes is shrinking for millions of residents, according to housing experts and international data.

Rising rents, surging property prices and the growing use of housing as a financial asset have left households spending ever-larger shares of their income on shelter, increasing vulnerability to eviction and homelessness, experts say.

“For investors, housing systems are working exactly as intended,” Julieta Perucca, deputy director at The Shift, an NGO advocating for housing rights, told Anadolu.

Increasingly, she said, homes are treated as financial assets – bought, sold, left vacant or rented short-term to maximize profits – rather than as essential shelter.

“Housing becomes unaffordable and out of reach, and slowly everyone starts getting pushed out of the housing market,” she said.

She noted that governments often resist accountability because real estate, valued globally at about $304 trillion, carries enormous economic and political weight.

“If governments were held accountable, they would need to restructure housing systems entirely,” she said.

- ‘People cannot afford the rents’

A senior UN housing expert said affordability is the common thread behind rising housing insecurity.

“People cannot afford the rents,” Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the UN special rapporteur on the right to housing, told Anadolu.

“This really is the root cause of the crisis.”

In many cities, he said, households are spending 40% to 50% or more of their income on rent or mortgage payments, leaving them one shock away from eviction.

He described a sharp rise in street homelessness across Europe and North America, alongside widespread “hidden homelessness,” including people doubling up with relatives or living in insecure temporary arrangements.

According to EU data, housing costs have risen far faster than incomes. Across the bloc, house prices increased by more than 50% and rents by around a quarter between 2010 and 2024. In the bloc’s biggest cities, one in ten households spends more than 40% of their income on rent.

France illustrates the trend. From 1996 to 2023, housing prices rose by 88%, while average wages increased by just 13%, according to national data cited by Le Monde. An Odoxa poll published in November found that seven in 10 French residents say it has become difficult to find housing where they live.

In the United States, housing costs have also surged. Median single-family home prices rose nearly 50% between 2019 and 2024, more than twice the pace of median income growth, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Alongside rising costs, homelessness has climbed. US federal data shows the number of people experiencing homelessness in the US rose sharply between 2023 and 2024, reaching a record 771,480 people on a single night.

“Our worsening national affordable housing crisis, rising inflation, stagnating wages among middle- and lower-income households, and the persisting effects of systemic racism have stretched homelessness services systems to their limits,” said the US Department of Housing and Urban Development in the 2024 report.

The housing crisis spans the globe. In Mexico City, rental prices skyrocketed by over 110% in some neighborhoods over the past three years. Hong Kong, according to the World Economic Forum, is the world’s least affordable housing market, with the average home costing more than 14 times the median household income.

- Markets over shelter

Rajagopal said many governments had contributed to the crisis by reducing investment in social housing and allowing housing to be governed almost entirely by market forces.

“Affordable homes are not possible if governments don’t control the value of land,” he said.

He pointed to cities such as Vienna and Singapore, where long-term public ownership models, land-price regulation and large-scale social housing have helped keep homes affordable despite high demand.

“Where street homelessness is low, it is because land pricing is managed, not left to speculation,” he added.

Rajagopal also cited the Netherlands’ decision in 2012 to abolish its housing ministry as a “big mistake.” The ministry was re-established in 2023 as homelessness and affordability pressures mounted, and he urged other nations with housing crises to create similar institutions.

- The right to housing

The right to adequate housing is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international treaties, obligating governments to ensure access to safe, affordable and secure housing without discrimination. Some countries also enshrine the right to housing in their constitutions.

“In fact, the right to housing is law. It has a legal definition,” Perucca said. “But governments often treat it as aspirational rather than enforceable in court.”

She said fulfilling that right requires action not only from governments but also sustained pressure from civil society and residents themselves to demand enforcement.

Perucca urged responses that go beyond short-term measures such as shelters and food banks, calling instead for large-scale social housing investment, community land trusts, stronger tenant protections, and eviction-prevention teams that intervene when landlords move to evict tenants.

She also pointed to housing first approaches – which prioritize providing stable, permanent housing before addressing employment, health or social services – as among the few models shown to reduce chronic homelessness. However, she warned they cannot succeed if broader housing markets remain heavily financialized.

- Migration is not the cause

Both experts rejected claims that migration is driving housing shortages, calling migrants an easy political scapegoat.

Perucca said far-right groups have capitalized on public frustration over rising rents by offering “a very easy solution to a very complicated problem.”

“The real driver is global capital flowing into housing as an investment,” she said.

Rajagopal agreed, saying housing shortages in Europe are “home-grown.”

“Governments are trying to blame it on outsiders,” he said. “This is simply not factually true. Migrants are not responsible for housing crises in countries like the UK, Germany, France or the Netherlands.”