The architecture of rent: Hybrid property regimes in São Paulo’s favelas

This paper examines how rental markets have become a defining mode of incremental housing production in São Paulo’s informal settlements, transforming self-built dwellings from vehicles of social inclusion into financial assets. Based on ethnographic research and architectural documentation of 236 properties in two large favelas, it develops a typology that links built form to ownership, finance, management and social relations. The analysis shows that the shift from use-oriented to exchange-oriented housing is not an abstract economic transition but one that materializes in vertical additions, property subdivision, and new forms of landlord–tenant cohabitation. Cycles of rental densification commodify land once designated for social use and heighten housing precarity, yet they also generate new livelihood opportunities, diverse housing forms, and collective investment arrangements that mediate the dominance of market logics. These hybrid property regimes challenge prevailing models of urban integration that link settlement consolidation with ownership.