Selling a house, staging a dream

ABSTRACT

Migrants’ transnational housing investments are a relatively overlooked field to explore the workings of so-called migration industries, as we do, in this paper, through a case study of Ecuadorian migration. Based on fieldwork with two real estate agencies in Madrid and visits to their housing projects in Quito, we show how these companies support Ecuadorians’ collective socio-cultural practices in Madrid, in order to capitalise on their potential to invest in the homeland. As the agencies claim, migrants who buy properties in Ecuador do not just pursue their own interest. They also display their unremitting attachment to the country, besides paving the way for a ‘successful’ return. As our analysis reveals, housing investments can indeed facilitate migrant’s physical, emotional, and existential mobility. However, the repertoire of ‘Ecuadorianness’ these agencies deploy in Spain has little to do with the symbols and imaginaries of modernity and success on which their real estate developments in Ecuador rely. This reveals the inherent tensions in status and life projects between immigration and emigration contexts, and the role of transnational housing investments in mediating them.

KEYWORDS:

• Real estate agencies
• transnational housing
• nostalgia
• home
• Spain
• Ecuador

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. As a recent survey on Ecuadorians in Madrid shows (n = 520; average length of stay: 14 yrs.) (ERC HOMInG, 2019), only 5% of interviewees owned a house before migrating to Spain, 22% had built it in the meantime, and 37% were willing to either buy or build one. Interestingly, this data suggests that citizenship and the existence of significant others living in migrants’ cities of origin influence the migrant’s attitudes towards investing in housing in Ecuador. Ecuadorians with dual citizenship are less likely to invest in real estate back in Ecuador, whereas those whose relatives still live there are more likely to do so. Closely related, the recent account of Abainza and Calfat (2018) suggests that Ecuadorian households with at least one returnee have higher probability of house ownership.

2. A discussion of the often-blurred boundaries between ‘overt’ and ‘covert’ research goes beyond the scope of this article. See, however, Homan and Bulmer (1980), Calvey (2008), and Hammersley and Traianou (2012).

3. To be precise, three sites were located in wealthy areas of the city with prices ranging between US$ 150,000 and 190,000; three in middle-income neighbourhoods, with prices ranging between US$ 120,000 and 150,000; two in a low-income area with prices below US$50,000.

4. Obtaining exact figures on the percentage of customers with a migratory background was no easy task. Our informal conversations with estate agents suggest that such data, if available at all, are only accessible to those in charge of the legal and financial areas of the company. One of our interlocutors, however, estimated that about 10 out of 150 properties in the project he was selling had been purchased by Ecuadorians abroad.

5. This picture, and all those that follow, are from authors’ fieldwork.

6. See footnote 1.

7. This is an idiomatic expression which in this context means something like ‘your roots will always remain here’.

8. This title is inspired by Obeid (2013).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by European Research Council [grant number ERC-StG HOMInG 678456].

Notes on contributors

Luis Eduardo Pérez Murcia

Luis Eduardo Pérez Murcia is a Post-Doctoral Researcher in HOMInG – The Home-Migration Nexus, University of Trento.

Paolo Boccagni

Paolo Boccagni is Professor in Sociology, University of Trento, and Principal Investigator of ERC-StG HOMInG – The Home-Migration Nexus.