This research explores the scale and nature of international and domestic investment flows in London, Paris, and Amsterdam, the three cities under investigation in the ESRC-funded ORA research project “What is Governed in Cities” (2019-2022). The focus is primarily on residential investment, although other sectors are included for context. Using data provided by Real Capital Analytics/MSCI and other sources, we compare market churn and trends related to capital flows, existing residential investment, and new housing developments. The paper draws on literature from a variety of theoretical approaches to frame the investment flows across the three cities, considering financialisation literature (van Loon & Aalbers, 2017; Guirronet et al., 2016; Pike & Pollard, 2016), institutionalist perspectives (Adams and Tiesdell, 2010; Theurillat et al., 2015), the internationalisation of the real estate market (Fuerst et al., 2015; Falkenbach, 2009) and investment literature more broadly (Newell, 2016; Barras, 2009). Incorporating interviews with developers and investors, we analyse the key actors and locations for institutional investment across a 15-year time horizon (2005-2020) and highlight ways in which institutional investors have contributed to the creation and recreation of the urban form across the geographies of our three case study cities. The paper broadly examines investment trends and flows, as well as more detailed reflections on the specific strategies of particular investors. The presentation will reflection on these trends, in addition to a selection of the strategic narratives around the types of investor that are present across our European case studies of the residential market. The variations in regulation and governance, market knowledge, and local real estate context across London, Paris, and Amsterdam offer interesting insights into these investment actors and processes. References Adams, D., and Tiesdell, S. (2010). ‘Planners as market actors: rethinking state-market relations in land and property.’ Planning Theory and Practice, 11(2), pp.187-207. Barras, R. (2009). Building Cycles: Growth and Instability, Wiley Blackwell; Oxford. Falkenbach, H. (2009) Market selection for international real estate investments. International Journal of Strategic Property Management, 13 (4), pp. 299-308. Fuerst, F., Milcheva, S. and Baum, A. (2015). Cross-border capital flows into real estate. Real Estate Finance, 31(3), pp. 103-122. Guirronet, A., Attuyer, K. & Halbert, L. (2016) Building cities on financial assets: The financialisation of property markets and its implications for city governments in the Paris city-region. Urban Studies, 53(7), pp.1442-1464. Newell, G. (2016) ‘The changing real estate market transparency in the European real estate markets’. Journal of Property Investment & Finance, 34 (4), pp. 407-420. Pike, A. & Pollard, J. (2010) Economic geographies of financialization. Economic geography, 86(1), pp. 29-51. Theurillat, T., Rerat, P. & Crevoisier, O. (2015) The real estate markets: Players, institutions and territories. Urban Studies, Vol.52(8), pp.1414-1433. van Loon, J. & Aalbers, M. (2017) How real estate became ‘just another asset class’: the financialization of the investment strategies of Dutch institutional investors, European Planning Studies, 25 (2), pp. 221-240