This paper intends to understand the most commonly characteristics usually pointed to housing systems in South European countries: a small percentage of public suplly, a large number of homeowners and a high weight of second residence and housing vacancies. Particularly, the main objective is to explain the relationship between the specific nature of the Portuguese development model (and housing policies) and the high homeownership rate, pointing out three phenomena that have deeply shaped the Portuguese housing system: i) the late migration from rural areas (60s and 70s) occupying central city and its suburbs, through both the legal market and slums and illegal settlements based on ownership regime; ii) the significant importance of landowners and real estate companies (allied to the financial capital) in Portuguese economy and development model; iii) the late development of a young, impoverished and democratic State (1974) which had substantially oriented the scarce public investment to support homeownership. Nevertheless, the access to homeownership is not just a public intent and an economic market pressure, it is rooted on the expectations of the families for whom housing assumes a complex political, symbolic and economic role. We argue here that this particularly feature corresponds to a “happy joint venture” between Families, State and Market. For families, this way in accessing housing seems to work not only as the attachment to a specific cultural model, as it is usually referred to, but also corresponds to an economic rationale, a source of security in a context of an unstable job market, low incomes and a weak welfare provision.

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Housing policies; homeownership; welfare regime