Recent years have seen a burst of new writing on the opening and closing of urban rent gaps. Such studies generally consider individual cases. Rarely does the opportunity arise to readily compare and contrast rent gaps across multiple cities and territories, least of all within the context of a single developer or investor portfolio. Such an opportunity has arisen in the past decade, however, as the US investment firm Blackstone has pursued a multi-territory housing-investment strategy specifically of identifying and closing rent gaps, which it styles ‘buy it, fix it, sell it’. This article examines that strategy and the varying nature of its implementation in Danish, German, Swedish and US cities. It argues that the rent gap is a paradoxical phenomenon: vast gaps, promising vast profits, frequently open up and frequently remain open for long periods before being closed – if they are closed at all. A primary reason is that successful and profitable closure requires not just favourable local political-economic conditions but a singularly well-funded, determined and aggressive investor – an investor, that is, such as Blackstone.

近年来，出现了大量关于城市租金差距拉大和缩小的新著作。此类研究通常考虑个别案例。很少有机会轻松比较和对比多个城市和地区的租金差距，尤其是在单个开发商或投资者投资组合的背景下。然而，这样的机会在过去十年中出现了，因为美国投资公司 Blackstone 一直在推行一项多领土住房投资战略，专门用于识别和缩小租金差距，它的风格是“买、修、卖”。本文研究了该战略及其在丹麦、德国、瑞典和美国城市实施的不同性质。它认为租金差距是一个自相矛盾的现象：巨大的差距，承诺巨大的利润，经常打开并经常在关闭之前长时间保持打开状态——如果它们完全关闭的话。一个主要原因是，成功且有利可图的关闭不仅需要有利的当地政治经济条件，还需要资金充足、坚定且积极进取的投资者——投资者，例如 Blackstone。