Turning Tactics into Strategy: The Right to Stay Put and the Decommodification of Housing in Barcelona

Authors: Luisa Rossini ID, Gabriele D’Adda ID

The 2007/2008 global financial crisis severely affected EU semi-peripheral countries like Spain, where recovery policies facilitated the entry of international financial actors into the real estate market. In Spain, measures by the state and central bank supported the expansion of equity funds and REITs, accelerating the financialisation of housing and turning it into a speculative asset. This significantly contributed to widespread mortgage repossessions, evictions, and increasing housing precarity. In response, grassroots movements mobilised to defend housing rights and developed tactics that offered meaningful alternatives to eviction and displacement – conditions further exacerbated by the chronic lack of affordable housing, which remains among the lowest in Europe. This article examines the ‘tactics’ enacted by groups actively engaged in housing struggles in Barcelona, some of which were eventually incorporated into public administration strategies. Among these, the use of the right of ‘first refusal and pre-emption’ (tanteo y retracto) – pioneered by movements and some housing cooperatives – has proven effective in countering evictions and contributing to the expansion of affordable and social housing stock. By combining radical actions – such as actual or alleged occupations – with engagement in institutional channels, including demonstrations, policy negotiations, and legislative advocacy, these actors have (re)politicised urban planning and challenged dominant narratives of housing as a financial commodity. This study explores how such contentious urban practices resist financialisation and open space for alternative socio-economic governance in times of housing financialisation, austerity, and shrinking public resources, as well as their effectiveness in transforming grassroots tactics into decommodified and definancialised alternative housing strategies.

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Document Type
article
ISSN
2336-2839
Volume / Issue
12 / 1
Pages
89-101
https://doi.org/10.13060/23362839.2025.12.1.589
Date of publication
12.6.2025
Keywords:
housing finance , homelessness and social exclusion , urban policy and planning , legal aspects of housing, land and planning

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Rossini, L. , G. D’Adda 2025. ‘Turning Tactics into Strategy: The Right to Stay Put and the Decommodification of Housing in Barcelona.’ Critical Housing Analysis 12 (1): 89-101. https://doi.org/10.13060/23362839.2025.12.1.589