1 Wijburg, G. and Aalbers, M.B. (2017) The alternative financialization of the German housing market. Housing Studies 22: in press. The alternative financialization of the German housing market Gertjan Wijburg & Manuel B. Aalbers KU Leuven/University of Leuven Correspondence Address: Gertjan Wijburg, Department of Geography & Tourism, KU Leuven/University of Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200-E, 3001 Leuven, Belgium. E-mail: Gertjan.Wijburg@kuleuven.be Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the reviewers and editors for constructive feedback on an earlier draft of our paper. The authors also thank Jan Finke, Susanne Heeg, Sebastian Kohl, Daniel Mertens, Arie Stoffelen and Egbert van der Zee for their valuable advice and assistance. This work is part of ‘‘The Real Estate/Financial Complex’’ research project (European Research Council grant number 313376). ABSTRACT While many European countries experienced a global housing boom in the early/mid 2000s, house prices and mortgage debt in Germany stagnated. Therefore, the German housing system is considered to be operating outside financialized capitalism. Despite Germany’s apparent stability, we argue that an alternative trajectory of financialization in the German housing market can be observed. This trajectory has followed three stages or ‘waves’. The first wave started around the time of German unification and is characterized by the failed attempt of West German banks to marketise and liberalise German housing finance. The second wave started in the late 1990s and is characterized by the ‘financialized privatization’ of many public housing associations and the speculative investments of private equity firms and hedge funds. The third wave started during the global financial crisis and is characterized by booming housing prices and the market entry of listed real estate companies. KEY WORDS Germany, financialization, privatization, political economy, private equity and hedge funds, listed real estate firms