The development of ‘Affordable housing’ has become an urgent and important topic of discussion in China. Unlike in western countries where the social welfare system has been set up for many years and the public housing system also is mature, in most Asian countries, the social welfare systems are still weak in relation to their large amount of low-income populations. The gap between rich and poor is considerably large, and is still increasing; many people with low income could not afford their own houses since the minimum down payment and the entry requirement of the real estate market is both increasingly high; the ‘Affordable housing’ is therefore very difficult to be developed appropriately under this circumstances.

The thesis provides an overview of the development of ‘affordable housing’ around the world, and a brief introduction of the relevant situation in China, in order to find out some applicable policy suggestions for the development of Guangzhou city’s affordable housing market from such previous experiences. The public housing system in U.S. and Sweden has had a strong foundation for many decades, while China is a developing country with the largest population in the world, in order to solve the housing problem, the Chinese government start to implement public housing policies and establish the ‘public housing system with Chinese style’. The Guangzhou affordable housing policies are based on the Chinese-style public housing system, given the similar cultural background and economic foundation, Singapore and Hong Kong’s public housing development process has more value for Guangzhou City Government to learn from.

Results from the questionnaire and analysis are shown for the current housing status in Guangzhou City, which reflects some realistic housing problems and it takes a long term for householders to achieve a down payment and ‘full house ownership’.