Remittance houses, a transnational asset

Ecuadorian migrants’ transnational investments in housing, from the perspective of the Spanish economic crisis

Abstract

Based on the case of Spain, remarkable for the relocation of immigrants returning to their home country around 2010, the article discusses the significance of houses purchased in places of origin and their impact on the decision to return to the home country. The analysis is based on a qualitative survey conducted between 2015 and 2018 in Quito and Madrid (interviews, observations in 16 households). Conducting the survey in cities reveals another facet of remittance houses than that prevalent in classical literature. Embedded in the urban fabric, they constitute an economic heritage generating rental income. Essential to migration projects of many low-income migrants, “remittance houses” will be considered as invested assets that can circulate or be converted into other resources, according to asset accumulation theory. These properties thus act as transnational investments, the result of family strategies; they can enable resettlement in the country of origin, but also, paradoxically, extend the stay
in Spain.