Geographies of state-led housing rentierization: The case of tax subsidies for household build-to-rent investment in France

While housing is increasingly viewed as an asset, transformations in housing policy have shifted towards supporting rental investment, contributing to the rentierization of housing in advanced economies. Yet, the political economy of housing often overlooks the spatial dimensions of this process. This research seeks to make an empirical contribution to the analysis of the geographical forms of state action, based on the case of tax subsidies for build-to-rent investments by households (TBH) in France and their transformation from 2009 to 2022. Drawing on an original database that tracks changes in TBH eligibility perimeters across France, supplemented by public data on municipal social composition, property markets and parliamentary debates, this article argues that the geographical concentration of TBH fuelled a spatially selective rentierization of the French housing sector. Over the decade of 2010, the fiscal cost of TBH quadrupled, while eligibility was progressively restricted to denser and more socially privileged municipalities. This article shows that this relationship is directly tied to one of the primary objectives of narrowing the areas eligible for TBH: safeguarding household investors from financial losses. By analyzing the spatial selectivity of TBH as an institutional fix, this article highlights how state regulation of housing production operates as a system comprising three interdependent components: the strategies of private actors (investors and developers), housing market dynamics, and the spatial and strategic selectivity of the state. This framework contributes to understanding the fiscal geography of rental investment and its role in shaping uneven housing development.