Wealth Inequalities and the Dynamics of Housing Market The project investigates how asset-based welfare policies, residential market volatility, stratified accumulation and vulnerability impinge upon the geography of inequality in property markets. Since the 1990s, housing prices have increased faster than the income of buyers, becoming a driver of social polarization and household vulnerability. We investigate the links between socio-spatial inequality, asset capitaliation, instability and vulnerability in residential housing markets. An empirical study of the reinforcing factors of inequalities, conceptualized as feedback between prices, types of markets, and housing finance regimes. We investigate to what extent contemporary social inequality is shaped by one’s relationship to spatially stratified housing markets. We hypothesize that the flow of real estate investments and residential housing production are predicated upon the intensifying financial stratification of urban inequalities at the neighborhood level. This complex socio-spatial layering is what we refer to as a housing finance regime (HFR), or a system of national and local incentives for accessing credit associated with the spatial variability of income and housing prices. Using disaggregated datasets on property transactions, household surveys, and homeowner insights on residential mobility, we analyzed the spatial, behavioral and financial trajectories of households in relation to housing price dynamics among three French cities (Paris, Lyon, Avignon). This project provides an understanding of how housing finance regimes (HFR) play out ‘on the ground’ both by linking the financial dynamics of residential markets to the production of socio-spatial inequalities at different scales. Interpreting housing-based inequalities from three interrelated scales of action - Our comparative analysis draws upon case studies from Paris, Lyon, and Avignon in order to characterize prices, income, and other variables of interest play out among the functional urban areas. - An inventory was conducted in Paris, Lyon and Avignon to identify key market infrastructures that both interconnect and influence real estate accumulation strategies at different levels (municipal zero-interest loans, affordable housing instruments, rental investment subsidies and tax incentives, and local building legislation). Interviews with key stakeholders sought to deepen our understanding of housing policies and their local effects. - To inform our analysis of the local spatial structure of affordability, we integrated different spatial datasets and surveys which so far have only been studied separately: transaction data held by the Chamber of Notaries, and stored on the BIEN and PERVAL databases, as well as by the French Department of Public Finance which provides open-source cadastral and property tax data (DVF dataset). - To interpret the variegated forms of asset accumulation, we classified the profiles of homeowners according to asset-building proxies, using individual and disaggregated property tax-related data from the French family benefits agency (Caisse d'allocations familiales, with access to 2.3 million households). We then associated these data aggregates with qualitative information on the households actually involved in market transactions (e.g. recent buyers identified by new addresses declared at the family benefits agencies and at the postal services). Finally detailed studies were conducted in targeted neighborhoods by means of a household survey (n=1427) and further follow-up interviews with a selection of these respondents (n=85). Results - We characterize affordability for median households as an entry point to assess socio-economic inequality in the feedback loop, starting with price-to-income ratio (PIR) metric. - We analyze the context in which affordability constrains the residential trajectories of households through home price inflation and market volatility. - We use the share of revenues from capital investment in a household’s income as a proxy to observe the local conditions of wealth accumulation. - The spatial patterns of vulnerability we identified in our case studies show how homeowner households are affected by the risk of price decline or below average price inflation. This contradicts the asset-based welfare hypothesis for poorer households. The case studies support the view that vulnerability is a multifaceted process, one that is shaped by a combination of high debt-to-value ratios, risk to declining property values, social or racial discrimination of households leading to high-risk assessment (high cost of insurance and subprime mortgages), as well as increased precarity of a household’s employment status. Our research focused on three main areas of activity: (1) an analysis of the modalities by which household access and inclusion in the property market was constituted (e.g. price-to-income metrics), as well as the lasting, compound effects that this enrollment has had on the accumulation/vulnerability trajectories of these actors; (2) an analysis of the context in which such affordability is constrained wider economic factors (e.g. housing price inflation and market volatility) that influence local conditions for wealth accumulation/vulnerability to take place; (3) an analysis of the geography of socio-spatial polarization as a function of the uncertainties and vulnerabilities that impinge upon a household’s asset-based welfare trajectory. Based on the three cities analysed, we find that developments in real estate markets and demand solvency mechanisms have contributed, to reinforcing social inequalities among households. The case studies support the view that vulnerability is a multifaceted process, one that is shaped by a combination of high debt-to-value ratios, risk to declining property values, social or racial discrimination of households leading to high-risk assessment (high cost of insurance and subprime mortgages), as well as increased precarity of a household’s employment status - all contribute to reshaping the geography of inequality in France today. We can infer from this the durability of class relations based on property and intergenerational wealth. The trajectories of households are thus largely anchored in the places of residence, whether it is a question of intergenerational wealth trajectories (strengthening, weakening, uncertain) which depend on one’s position in the acquisition process for single-owners (loan in progress, loan repaid); the investment strategy of the buyer (first-time buyer, modest multi-owner, large multi-owner); the perceived potential of property to grow in value over time (volatility of local markets). The role capital mobility, which we have begun to analyze, which underscores the importance of knowledge about donor-recipient markets, their proximity, as a way to qualify perceptions shaping investment arbitrage across owner and rental housing markets. The project findings that have been published and disseminated at international conferences and accessible on the HAL open access repository as well as on the project website (https://wisdhom.hypotheses.org) under a Creative Commons license. Project metadata, including R code produced to harmonize the patchwork of real estate and transaction data employed in the study has been published on the usual open access platforms (CRAN or Github), under a General Public License (GPL), in order to allow for better visibility and insertion of the project results at international levels. The WIsDHoM project is a fundamental research project coordinated by Renaud Le Goix, professor at the Université Paris Cité, UMR Géographie-cités laboratory. It also associates the UMR Espace laboratory, coordinator Laure Casanova-Enault, MCF at Avignon Université, and the UMR Centre Max Weber laboratory, coordinator Loïc Bonneval, MCF at the University Lumière Lyon 2. The project started in March 2019 and lasted 42 months. It received ANR funding of €383,571, for a total cost of around €1,004,294 including the salary costs of the permanent staff of the employing partner institutions.