COVID-19 and the meaning of home: how the pandemic triggered new thinking on housing

The COVID-19 pandemic has produced profound and substantially unexpected implications for how we think about, value, and experience housing. This is perhaps evident, not only for housing scholars and housing industry players, but for many citizens who have lately witnessed resulting rapid appreciation in their housing wealth, as well as for numerous others who have grappled with stark challenges in accessing or retaining their own affordable housing through the crisis. Unprecedently in modern times, many housing processes came to a rapid standstill in early 2020. At least in some jurisdictions residential construction, property transactions and tenancy terminations suddenly ceased. Yet within months, with the pandemic still raging, sharply rising housing costs widely took hold. The effects of central bank action to ward off recession through rock bottom interest rates was widely compounded by factors such as low supply, and behaviour characterised by a fear of missing out (Li & Zhang, 2021; Subaşı & Baycan, 2022). In some countries, direct government housing market stimulus initiatives poured petrol on the fire (Pawson et al., 2022; Clun 2022). Blakeley (2021) argues that, compounding the financialisation of UK housing initiated in the 1970s, the pandemic will exacerbate wealth inequalities tied to housing assets and push people into poverty and homelessness.