Circulation of financialized instruments and metrics of valuation: international real estate consultants as mediators for global and local agents

• Grant number: 20/08050-0
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): April 01, 2021
• Effective date (End): March 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Fundamentals of Architecture and Urbanism
• Principal researcher: Lucia Zanin Shimbo
• Grantee: Helterson Ribeiro da Silva Leite
• Home Institution: Instituto de Arquitetura e Urbanismo de São Carlos (IAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research is based on an empirically identified problem and theoretically grounded in the international literature on the existence of conduits that translate and contest financial engineering logics for real estate development and urban intervention projects. It is questioned, therefore, how the instruments, techniques and metrics of the global financial circuits circulate between different countries and how this circulation of knowledge tensions and adapts to the dynamics and local regulations, also looking at which are the institutional agents that perform such mediation. Based on this question, the objective is to understand how global finance and its agents are articulated at the local level with real estate development strategies through investment and real estate asset valuation processes. We work with the hypothesis that one of the links that allows interlocution between global financial logic and local real estate development strategies, especially in the countries of the global South, is international real estate consultancy. To test this hypothesis, a qualitative research was designed, consisting of three methods: documentary research of a historical nature on the professional field of real estate appraisal and consultancy in Brazil; field research in international consultancies based in London and with branches in São Paulo from the perspective of comparative urbanism; and analysis of logical argumentation of national and international property valuation standards. The scientific relevance of the research lies in the unprecedented contribution on the praxis involved in the international circulation of metrics and financial instruments, highlighting the academic and professional trajectories of the agents involved and the way in which these new methods and practices alter the logic of real estate production and design public policies and urban intervention projects. (AU)