Donors,  governments, microfinance networks, and foundations have promoted housing microfinance (“HMF”) for a decade. Considerable operational experience has accrued on this practice over this time. Meanwhile, many emerging economies have grown rapidly, which has changed housing markets and the context for HMF. The moment, then, is auspicious for our are-examination of housing microfinance and its record. How have microfinance institutions performed at housing lending? Is HMF still relevant to the enormous challenge of low-income housing and urban development in emerging countries and, if so, how can it be expanded to a massive scale. This paper answers these questions by analyzing recent survey data on housing microfinance, examining the housing economies and HMF practice in three countries that display a wide range of experience (Peru, Mexico, and Brazil), and profiling cutting-edge cases of market-based low-income housing delivery that include HMF. This paper mainly deals with Latin America, where HMF has advanced the most, but also draws on evidence from other regions. A short description of the emergence of HMF prefaces this investigation: HMF has become “hot” largely for two reasons:  First, HMF has the potential to serve most low and moderate-income households. These families neither want nor can afford a large long-term traditional mortgage to purchase a developer-built complete unit. Instead, these households build progressively, by acquiring and upgrading title to a lot, building a make-shift shelter, replacing this make-shift shelter with permanent materials and expanding it, and lobbying the government for services (Ferguson,2003; GreeneandRojas,2007). A series of small short-term loans can fund the steps in this progressive housing process with payments affordable to households.