Frontiers of housing financialization in El Salvador: state, mortgage credit and residential exclusion

PurposeThis paper examines the frontiers of housing financialization in El Salvador, focusing on how the state and mortgage credit operate as mechanisms that structure selective inclusion and residential exclusion in a semi-peripheral context.Design/methodology/approachWe conduct a traceable documentary analysis based on a normative–institutional corpus and aggregated secondary series. A coding matrix operationalizes state functions (enabler, promoter, and shaper), intervention modes (mortgage debt, programs/subsidies, fiscal incentives, rental and regularization) and access effects (inclusion, exclusion, segmentation and displacement). Evidence is triangulated and interpreted with cautious inference.FindingsEvidence clusters in three dimensions: (i) affordability mismatches between market/finance conditions and household payment capacity; (ii) limits and selectivity of public and financial instruments that filter access through eligibility and risk; and (iii) distributive effects that redirect residential strategies toward renting, cohabitation and informal solutions.Originality/valueThe study provides an operational framework to map moving financialization frontiers in which the state not only regulates but also configures the access architecture and its exclusions. It offers policy implications and a research agenda for housing access and finance in Central America.