Studies on affordable housing tend to focus on supply-side concerns with less attention paid to demand. In this review, we consider the problem of ‘demand’ to identify fresh perspectives and questions that will extend our understanding of the challenges associated with affordable housing. The complexities of studying ‘demand’ are drawn from a range of disciplines. From an economic perspective, ‘demand’ is a result of techno-rational choices by individual actors in the marketplace. Yet, such a linear approach runs counter to a sociological understanding, where demand is produced by complexes of social practices. Taking a linguistic turn, ‘demand’ raises questions as to how society is brought to order, and how the rhetorical discourses of affordable housing need to account for the needs of vulnerable groups of people whose voices are currently excluded in the formal ordering of requirements through social and institutional arrangements. We reflect on these three variants of conceptualizing ‘demand’ to question power relations and encourage the problematizing of a more inclusive society through affordable housing.