Safe as Houses: Financialization, Foreclosure, and Precarious Homeownership in the United States
The financialization of the U.S. economy has had important implications for household well-being, but the mechanisms connecting financialization and precarity have not been fully identified. This research identifies mortgage foreclosure as a nexus connecting macro-level financialization to an array...
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Published in | American sociological review Vol. 89; no. 2; pp. 197 - 226 |
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Main Author | |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Los Angeles, CA
SAGE Publications
01.04.2024
American Sociological Association |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | The financialization of the U.S. economy has had important implications for household well-being, but the mechanisms connecting financialization and precarity have not been fully identified. This research identifies mortgage foreclosure as a nexus connecting macro-level financialization to an array of downstream consequences for homeowners and asks (1) how mortgage securitization, a key technology of financialization, enabled new foreclosure practices; and (2) how these practices affect housing precarity among homeowners at risk of foreclosure. To answer these questions, I analyze court records, interviews with key participants, and primary source documents to examine the evolution of mortgage foreclosure in Cook County, Illinois, from 1992 to 2006. I find that as mortgage securitization transformed the social and economic relations between borrowers and lenders, foreclosure became actively managed as both a driver of costs and a source of profits, and loan administrators and their attorneys worked to reduce costly borrower protections. These changes increased housing precarity by making foreclosure more frequent and more rapid. |
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ISSN: | 0003-1224 1939-8271 |
DOI: | 10.1177/00031224241231011 |