My doctoral research has been supported by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) (2025) and the Jean M Due and Marianne Ferber International Research Fund, UIUC. My dissertation examines how a state-led tourism policy initiative transformed the housing market in Accra, Ghana. I focus on two tourism initiatives: “Year of Return” and “Beyond the Return.” These government-led initiatives, designed to attract investment from second-generation Ghanaians, people of African descent in the diaspora, and tourists, have spurred private investment in real estate. I focus on these initiatives launched in 2019, specifically the period beginning from 2019 to date, as this period has received a record inflow of diaspora and a rapid increase in short-term rental (STR) serviced developments. These developments, largely driven by tourism and foreign capital, cater primarily to transnational interest and capital. By framing Accra as a new frontier for speculative urbanism, developers have prioritized projects that reshape residential areas into lucrative tourist districts. Consequently, this shift has intensified gentrification, displacing lower-income residents and escalating housing inequality. As such, my aims are twofold: first, to critically examine how the state, through its urban and investment policies, actively promotes the development of STR-serviced properties at the expense of affordable housing; and second, to explore how these STR-serviced developments shape new landscapes of labor and housing dynamics for domestic workers who sustain them, which are essential to the model of “hands-off” investments marketed to expatriates, return migrants and tourists. Using an integrated mixed-methods design that combines geospatial and quantitative analysis with qualitative fieldwork, I aim to understand the complex dynamics of labor, displacement, and spatial reorganization and emphasize the socio- economic repercussions of tourism-driven real estate development in Accra.