From location to attention: recoding housing markets for digital capitalism

Book section : Chapter

This chapter examines how property portals have brought housing markets into the economy of attention, transforming organisational practices and value chains in the real estate industry. In South Africa, two property platforms have taken control of the market's informational landscape by mediating the housing search process through data extraction and software-asa-service, turning real estate brokers into captive customers. By charging access to their infrastructures, regulating online traffic, and monitoring market interactions, property portals monetize attention, governing the brokerage industry through automated, data-driven pricing mechanisms that transform syndication software and digital neighborhoods into incomeproducing assets. Leveraging their infrastructural power, these platforms have recoded the housing market on their own terms, harnessing the rentier mechanisms of digital capitalism.

Authors: Migozzi, J

• Publication status: Accepted
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Bristol University Press
• Host title: The Data Politics of Housing, Property and Planning
• ISBN: 9781447379348
• Language: English
• Keywords: attention; platforms; data; brokers; housing; South Africa; proptech
• Subtype: Chapter