Real estate financialisation in Mexico: a look from the Real Estate Investment Trusts in Mexico (REIT)

Real estate financialisation in Mexico is moving towards a process of increasing securitization based on investment instruments that entered the stock market. One of them is the Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT, known in Mexico as FIBRAS), which group income-generating properties from the productive sector: offices, shopping centers, hotels, industrial buildings, among others. This paper examines the participation of this instrument in the financialized urbanization process through the analysis of its property portfolios and their diffusion in the urban system. The results show a process of specialization and diversification of the trusts; Its spatial logic reveals uneven patterns, with a greater presence of commercial properties and specialized services in the main metropolitan areas, while industrial and logistics warehouses were located in rural areas and the peripheries of urban centers that operate as nodes of the chains global value of manufacturing sectors. The expansion of properties in the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico reflect the role that this instrument plays in the consolidation of service-oriented enclaves.