in: Urban Austerity: Impacts of the Global Financial Crisis on Cities in Europe, Verlag Theater der Zeit 2016
1. Introduction
In Germany, since 1999, more than three million rental housing units have been traded in the context of
large‐scale transactions. Sales to “financial investors” played a dominant role among these transactions. In
this article, I propose elements for a narrative that may help to understand the reasons for these
transactions.