London since many years is facing unprecedented levels of housing marketisation and commodification. No wonder that local activists took the slogan against the MIPIM 2015 in Cannes when the business planned a Mipim UK in last October. Here broad and loud protests really had some effect and disturbed the opening of the official fair. An improvised  alternative conference in a squat was totally overcrowded with people interested in the analysis of financialisation, international linkages and new ways to organize for  better housing. But these events of course were only a moment in the development of local struggles.

See more at http://radicalhousingnetwork.org/

While inhabitants in Spain are facing a new wave of mortgage sales to private equity funds like Blackstone, a current main trend in the German residential property sector is the concentration of housing capital in a few listed joint stock companies. Most of them – and also their big shareholders -are present at MIPIM 2015, looking for more investors or foropportunities to buy up more assets.  Continue reading →