Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer
FrancoAngeli Journals

Geographies of Urban Financialization: Global Dynamics, Italian Scenarios

No. 3 (2025)

The financialization of the platform-mediated short-term rental market: A critical literature review

  • Gianluca Bei
  • Chiara Iacovone
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/rgioa3-2025oa21176
Submitted
ottobre 2, 2025
Published
2025-10-24

Abstract

The financialization of the platform-mediated short-term rental (STR) market is an emerging issue in the critical urban studies. Since the ramification and complexity of the platform-mediated STR market does not allow for a linear reading of financialization processes, the article aims to analyze the multiple levels and ways in which the STR market is opening up to these processes. Although there are a number of contributions that have investigated this perspective, this review aims to intercept the gaps and research perspectives that may emerge from the current debate on the topic. Through a critical literature review, the article outlines national and international debates on different levels of financialization in relation to the STR market. In particular, the thematic literature review will consider (i) the role of the State and regulation in facilitating the financialization of housing through short-term rentals; (ii) the financialization of housing: buy-to-rent and buy-to-sell investments related to STR; and (iii) the financialization of the offer: strategies proposed by platforms and property manager to incentivize investments in STR, such as micro-financing, loans, mortgages. Finally, the Italian debate on the topic is presented, highlighting how gaps in international literature can also be identified in this context, where more careful research on the actors and financial practices that characterize Airbnb is needed.

References

  1. Aalbers M.B. (2009). Geographies of the financial crisis. Area, 41(1): 34-42. DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2008.00877.x.
  2. Aalbers M.B. (2016). The Financialization of Housing. A political economy approach. Londra: Routledge.
  3. Aalbers M.B. (2017a). The variegated financialization of housing. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 41(4): 542-554. DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.12522.
  4. Aalbers M.B. (2017b). Corporate financialization. International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment and Technology: People, the Earth, Environment and Technology, 1-11. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118786352.wbieg0598.
  5. Aalbers M.B. (2019). Introduction to the forum: From third to fifth‐wave gentrification. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 110(1): 1-11. DOI:10.1111/tesg.12332.
  6. Aalbers M.B. (2020). Financial geography III: The financialization of the city. Progress in Human Geography, 44(3): 595-607. DOI: 10.1177/0309132519853922.
  7. Aguilera T., Artioli F., Colomb C. (2021). Explaining the diversity of policy responses to platform-mediated short-term rentals in European cities: A comparison of Barcelona, Paris and Milan. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 53(7): 1689-1712. DOI: 10.1177/0308518X19862286.
  8. Amore A., De Bernardi C., Arvanitis P. (2022). The impacts of Airbnb in Athens, Lisbon and Milan: a rent gap theory perspective. Current Issues in Tourism, 25(20): 3329-3342. DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2020.1742674.
  9. Ardura Urquiaga A., Lorente-Riverola I., Ruiz Sanchez J. (2020). Platform-mediated short-term rentals and gentrification in Madrid. Urban Studies, 57(15): 3095-3115. DOI: 10.1177/0042098020918154.
  10. Bei G., Celata F. (2023). Challenges and effects of short-term rentals regulation: A counterfactual assessment of European cities. Annals of Tourism Research, 101, 103605. DOI: 10.1016/j.annals.2023.103605.
  11. Bei G. (2025). The spatial effect of short-term rental regulations: The comparison between Barcelona and Paris. Cities, 158, 105603. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2024.105603.
  12. Bei G., Cocola-Gant A. (2025). Entitlement by registration: Regulated deregulation and the formalisation of short-term rentals in Lisbon. Antipode. DOI: 10.1111/anti.70067.
  13. Biber E., Light S.E., Ruhl J.B., Salzman J. (2017). Regulating business innovation as policy disruption: From the model T to Airbnb. Vand. L. Rev., 70, 1561.
  14. Blunt A., Dowling R. (2006). Home. Londra: Routledge.
  15. Bosma J.R., van Doorn N. (2022). The Gentrification of Airbnb: Closing Rent Gaps Through the Professionalization of Hosting. Space and Culture, 27(1), 31-47. DOI: 10.1177/12063312221090606.
  16. Botsman R., Rogers R. (2011). What’s mine is yours: how collaborative consumption is changing the way we live. Londra: Collins.
  17. Brollo B., Celata F. (2023). Temporary populations and sociospatial polarisation in the short-term city. Urban Studies, 60(10): 1815-1832. DOI: 10.1177/00420980221136957.
  18. Celata F., Romano A. (2022). Overtourism and online short-term rental platforms in Italian cities. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 30(5): 1020-1039. DOI: 10.1080/09669582.2020.1788568.
  19. Celata F., Sanna V.S., De Luca S. (2017). La “Airbnbificazione” delle città: gli effetti a Roma tra centro e periferia. Working paper, https://hdl.handle.net/11573/1083520.
  20. Celata F., Capineri C., Romano A. (2020). A room with a (re)view. Short-term rentals, digital reputation and the uneven spatiality of platform-mediated tourism. Geoforum, 112: 129-138. DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.04.007.
  21. Celata F., Hendrickson C.Y., Sanna V.S. (2017). The sharing economy as community marketplace? Trust, reciprocity and belonging in peer-to-peer accommodation platforms. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 10(2): 349-363. DOI: 10.1093/cjres/rsw044.
  22. Christophers B. (2015). Geographies of finance II: Crisis, space and politicaleconomic transformation. Progress in Human Geography, 39(2): 205-213. DOI: 10.1177/0309132513514343.
  23. Clancy M. (2022). Tourism, financialization, and short-term rentals: the political economy of Dublin’s housing crisis. Current Issues in Tourism, 25(20): 3363-3380. DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2020.1786027.
  24. Cocola-Gant A. (2016). Holiday rentals: The new gentrification battlefront. Sociological Research Online, 21(3): 112-120. DOI: 10.5153/sro.4071.
  25. Cocola-Gant A., Gago A. (2019). Airbnb, buy-to-let investment and tourism-driven displacement: A case study in Lisbon. Environment nd Planning A: Economy and Space, 53(7): 1671-1688. DOI: 10.1177/0308518X19869012.
  26. Cocola-Gant A., Jover J., Carvalho L. et al. (2021). Corporate hosts: The rise of professional management in the short-term rental industry. Tourism Management Perspectives, 40: 100879. DOI: 10.1016/j.tmp.2021.100879.
  27. Cocola‐Gant A., Malet Calvo D. (2023). The platformization of student housing and the rise of mid‐term rentals. The case of Uniplaces in Lisbon. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 114(5): 431-445. DOI: 10.1111/tesg.12560.
  28. Dagkouli-Kyriakoglou M., Tulumello S., Cocola-Gant A., Iacovone C., Pettas D. (2022).
  29. Digital mediated short-term rentals in the (post-) pandemic city. Digital Geography and Society, 3, 100028. DOI: 10.1016/j.diggeo.2022.100028.
  30. Dijkstra L., Garcilazo E., McCann P. (2015). The effects of the global financial crisis on European regions and cities. Journal of Economic Geography, 15(5): 935-949. DOI: 10.1093/jeg/lbv032.
  31. Esposito A. (2023). Tourism-driven displacement in Naples, Italy. Land Use Policy, 134: 106919. DOI: 10.3280/ASUR2020-129-S1009.
  32. Estevens A., Cocola-Gant A., López-Gay A., Pavel F. (2023). The role of the state in the touristification of Lisbon. Cities, 137, 104275. DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2023.104275.
  33. Ferreri M., Sanyal R. (2018). Platform economies and urban planning: Airbnb and regulated deregulation in London. I, 55(15): 3353-3368. DOI: 10.1177/0042098017751982.
  34. Fields D. (2022). Automated landlord: Digital technologies and post-crisis financial accumulation. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 54(1): 160-181. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X19846514.
  35. Fields D., Rogers D. (2021). Towards a critical housing studies research agenda on platform real estate. Housing, theory and society, 38(1): 72-94. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14036096.2019.1670724.
  36. Fiore M. (2023). Turismo e affitti brevi: l’impatto del Covid-19 sul mercato Airbnb a Bologna. In: Castrignanò M., Rimondi T., a cura di, Bologna dopo la pandemia: impatto territoriale e scenari futuri (pp. 262-285). Milano: FrancoAngeli.
  37. Gil J. (2024). How Airbnb and short-term rentals push the frontier of financialisation through housing assetisation. In: Martìnez M.A., ed., esearch Handbook on Urban Sociology (pp. 380-397). Londra: Edward Elgar Publishing.
  38. Gil J., Sequera J. (2022). The professionalization of Airbnb in Madrid: far from a collaborative economy. Current Issues in Tourism, 25(20): 3343-3362. DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2020.1757628.
  39. Gil J., Martínez P., Sequera J. (2023). The neoliberal tenant dystopia: Digital polyplatform rentierism, the hybridization of platform-based rental markets and financialization of housing. Cities, 137, 104245. DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2023.104245.
  40. Gotham K.F. (2009). Creating liquidity out of spatial fixity: The secondary circuit of capital and the subprime mortgage crisis. International journal of urban and regional research, 33(2): 355-371. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2009.00874.x.
  41. Guttentag D. (2015). Airbnb: disruptive innovation and the rise of an informal tourism accommodation sector. Current issues in Tourism, 18(12): 1192-1217. DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2013.827159.
  42. Gyódi K. (2024). The spatial patterns of Airbnb offers, hotels and attractions: are professional hosts taking over cities? Current Issues in Tourism, 27(17): 2757-2782. DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2023.2239428.
  43. Hübscher M., Kallert T. (2023). Taming Airbnb locally: analysing regulations in Amsterdam, Berlin and London. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 114(1): 6-27. DOI: 10.1111/tesg.12537.
  44. Iacovone C. (2023). Debate on regulation and professionalisation in the short-term rental housing market. Geoforum, 146, 103870. DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103870.
  45. Iacovone C. (2025). Exploring the Network of the Short-Term Rental Financial Complex. European Urban and Regional Studies, 0(0). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/09697764251333769.
  46. Jover J., Cocola-Gant A. (2023). The Political Economy of Housing Investment in the Short-Term Rental Market: Insights from Urban Portugal. Antipode, 55(1): 134-155. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12881.
  47. Jover J., Díaz-Parra I. (2020). Gentrification, transnational gentrification and touristification in Seville, Spain. Urban Studies, 57(15): 3044-3059. DOI: 10.1177/0042098019857585.
  48. Katsinas P. (2021). Professionalisation of short-term rentals and emergent tourism gentrification in post-crisis Thessaloniki. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 53(7): 1652-1670. DOI: 10.1177/0308518X21988940.
  49. Kemp P.A. (2020). Commentary on multiple property ownership. International Journal of Housing Policy, 20(1): 144-155. DOI: 10.1080/19491247.2019.1697522.
  50. Langley P., Leyshon A. (2017). Platform capitalism: The intermediation and capitalisation of digital economic circulation. Finance and society, 3(1): 11-31. DOI: 10.2218/finsoc.v3i1.1936.
  51. Lestegás I., Seixas J., Lois-González R.C. (2019). Commodifying Lisbon: A Study on the Spatial Concentration of Short-Term Rentals. Social Sciences, 8(2): 33. DOI: 10.3390/socsci8020033.
  52. Lestegás I. (2019). Lisbon after the crisis: from credit‐fuelled suburbanization to touristdriven gentrification. International journal of urban and regional research, 43(4): 705-723. DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.12826.
  53. Marcuse P., Madden D. (2016) In Defense of Housing: The Politics of Crisis. New York: Verso Books.
  54. Orozco-Martínez C., Gil Alonso F. (2024). The Recent Rise in Mid-Term Rentals in Barcelona: Causes and Implications. Critical Housing Analysis, 11(2): 148-160. DOI: 10.13060/23362839.2024.11.2.572.
  55. Paccoud A. (2017). Buy-to-let gentrification: Extending social change through tenure shifts. Environment and Planning A, 49(4): 839-856. DOI: 10.1177/0308518X16679406.
  56. Rogers D., Nelson J., Wong A. (2018). Geographies of hyper-commodified housing: foreign capital, market activity, and housing stress. Geographical Research, 56(4): 434-446. DOI: 10.1111/1745-5871.12280.
  57. Rolnik R. (2013). Late Neoliberalism: The Financialization of Homeownership and Housing Rights. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37(3): 1058-1066. DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.12062.
  58. Romano A., Bonini T., Capineri C. (2023). Interfacing the space of flows and the space of places in the platform society: ten years of Airbnb in Florence. Rivista geografica italiana, CXXX, 2: 61-82. DOI: 10.3280/rgioa2-2023oa15923.
  59. Rossi I., d’Addona S. (2025). The impact of Airbnb on long-term rentals, population, and college enrollments: Empirical evidence from an Italian university town. Tourism Economics, 13548166251314063. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/13548166251314063.
  60. Salerno G.M. (2022). Touristification and displacement. The long-standing production of Venice as a tourist attraction. City, 26(2-3): 519-541. DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2022.2055359.
  61. Salerno G.M., Russo A.P. (2022). Venice as a short-term city. Between global trends and local lock-ins. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 30(5): 1040-1059. DOI: 10.1080/09669582.2020.1860068.
  62. Sans A.A., Quaglieri A. (2016). Unravelling airbnb: Urban perspectives from Barcelona. Reinventing the local in tourism: Producing, consuming and negotiating place, 73: 209. DOI: 10.21832/9781845415709-015.
  63. Schäfer P., Braun N. (2016). Misuse through short-term rentals on the Berlin housing market. International journal of housing markets and analysis, 9(2): 287-311. DOI: 10.1108/IJHMA-05-2015-0023.
  64. Semi G., Tonetta M. (2021). Marginal hosts: Short-term rental suppliers in Turin, Italy. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 57(7): 1630-1651. DOI: 10.1177/0308518X20912435.
  65. Sequera J., Nofre J. (2020). Touristification, transnational gentrification and urban change in Lisbon: The neighbourhood of Alfama. Urban Studies, 57(15): 3169-3189. DOI: 10.1177/0042098019883734
  66. Sadowski, J. (2020). The internet of landlords: Digital platforms and new mechanisms of rentier capitalism. Antipode, 52(2): 562-580. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12595.
  67. Shaw J. (2020). Platform real estate: Theory and practice of new urban real estate markets. Urban Geography, 41(8): 1037-1064. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2018.1524653.
  68. Slater T. (2017). Planetary rent gaps. Antipode, 49: 114-137. DOI: 10.1111/anti.12185.
  69. Slee T. (2017). What’s Yours Is Mine: Against the Sharing Economy. New York: OR Books.
  70. Smith N. (1987). Gentrification and the rent gap. Annals of the Association of American Geographer, 77(3): 462-465. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8306.1987.tb00171.x.
  71. Srnicek N. (2017). Platform capitalism. Cambridge: Polity.
  72. Sundararajan A. (2017). The sharing economy: The end of employment and the rise of crowdbased capitalism. MIT Press.
  73. Tulumello S., Dagkouli-Kyriakoglou M. (2024). Housing financialization and the state, in and beyond Southern Europe: a conceptual and operational framework. Housing, Theory and Society, 41(2): 192-215. DOI: 10.1080/14036096.2023.2279529.
  74. Wachsmuth D., Weisler A. (2018). Airbnb and the rent gap: Gentrification through the sharing economy. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 50(6): 1147-1170. DOI: 10.1177/0308518X18778038.
  75. Wijburg G., Aalbers M.B., Conte V. et al. (2024). Tourism‐Led Rentier Capitalism: Extracting Rent and Value from Tourism Property Investment. Antipode, 56(2): 715- 737. DOI: 10.1111/anti.12989.
  76. Wijburg G., Aalbers M.B., Heeg S. (2018). The Financialisation of Rental Housing 2.0: Releasing Housing into the Privatised Mainstream of Capital Accumulation. Antipode. 50(4): 1098-1119. DOI: 10.1111/anti.12382.
  77. Yrigoy I. (2019). Rent gap reloaded: Airbnb and the shift from residential to touristic rental housing in the Palma Old Quarter in Mallorca, Spain. Urban studies, 56(13): 2709-2726. DOI: 10.1177/0042098018803261.
  78. Yrigoy I., Morell M., Müller N. (2022). Why do middle‐class positions matter? The alignment of short‐term rental suppliers to the interests of capital. Antipode, 54(3): 959-978. DOI: 10.1111/anti.12798.
  79. Zhang H., Zach F.J., Xiang Z. (2023). Design standardization by Airbnb multi-unit hosts. Annals of Tourism Research, 98(103523). DOI: 10.1016/j.annals.2022.103523.