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Peripheral financialisation: housing transformation in post-socialist Serbia (1990s-2020s)
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DOI：10.1080/12265934.2026.2670420.png)
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Abstract
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The paper explores the evolution and specificities of housing financialisation in Serbia, a context often overlooked in comparative housing research. While global and Central and Eastern European (CEE) scholarship has extensively addressed the financialisation of housing, Serbia remains underexamined, with existing literature limited to fragmented analyses of housing policy, urban development, or the impact of foreign-indexed loans. As a post-socialist and economically peripheral state, Serbia offers a distinct trajectory in which housing markets were shaped by turbulent political transitions, institutional fragility and global neoliberal pressures. This review paper traces the transformation of housing policy and market dynamics from the early 1990s to the contemporary period, covering three historical phases (1990–2000, 2000–2008 and post-2008), through four interconnected lenses: economic actors, political actors, housing policy shifts and possibilities of definancialisation. Drawing on primary legal documents, national statistics, grey literature and existing academic sources, the paper contributes a historically grounded and analytically structured account of how housing financialisation unfolded in Serbia. The analysis reveals dramatic yet contradictory dynamics. Mass privatization transferred 258,560 social housing units (94.5% of stock) for only €140–280 million by 2000, despite an estimated value of €6 billion. Post-2000 liberalization enabled rapid credit expansion: housing loans surged from 45,000 (2008) to 175,000 (2022), with bank claims growing from €1.71 billion (4.5% of GDP) to €5.6 billion (12% of GDP). Foreign capital had deepened penetration of the sector, with 87% foreign bank ownership and foreign affiliates controlling 40% of real estate GVA by 2023. Housing production intensified to 20,548 units annually post-2008, while property prices surged 237% (2008–2025) and the price-to-income ratio worsened to 16.8. The findings illuminate ‘peripheral financialisation’, i.e. a distinct configuration in which global financial integration coexists with persistent informality, institutional fragility and policy failure, offering insights into housing transformation in peripheral post-socialist contexts.
Keywords:
Housing financialisation
housing policy
political economy
post-socialist transition
peripheral financialisation
serbia
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