Entryways to homeownership : family strategies and intergenerational transfers in Malta’s housing system under financialisation

Abstract

As housing markets across Europe become increasingly financialised, a question has been raised over whether Southern European housing regimes, traditionally characterised by strong family-based welfare, are being displaced by liberal, financialised models. By focusing on the case of Malta, this paper argues that, rather than being disrupted, familial systems are finding new opportunities in those very same processes. Current literature has emphasised how Southern European families provide support in response to financialisation and as a safety net during periods of crisis, youth unemployment and state retrenchment. However, in the Maltese post-crisis context characterised by sustained economic growth and surging property prices, families adopt not only defensive strategies to ensure access to homeownership, but also offensive ones to promote wealth accumulation. These often leverage the tools of finance, such as accessing reconstruction loans and investment in real estate as a means of asset-building and intergenerational advancement. In doing so, families act not only as buffers against exclusion but as strategic agents capitalising on the very financialised dynamics that are reshaping housing markets. These strategies, whether defensive or offensive, take the form of (i) intergenerational property transfers, (ii) financial support such as gifted cash, intra-family loans, and guarantees, and (iii) co-residence. Crucially, however, these strategies are enabled by earlier state interventions, such as land distribution in the 1970s and 1980s, which created the conditions for property-based wealth accumulation. By adopting a historical-institutionalist lens, this paper underscores the importance of attending to historically contingent processes that shape institutional configurations, layered over comparative typologies.