This research was commissioned by the Western Australian Government to describe and assess international models for financing affordable housing that use public subsidies and incentives to attract large-scale commercial finance to the supply of affordable housing. There is a well-evidenced and growing need for additional affordable housing in Australia. This study aims to contribute in a timely way to a long-running dialogue between the research community, governments, the housing finance industry and private and non-profit housing providers about how to respond to this need by attracting more private investment.

Recent political, policy and financial market developments have given considerable impetus to that agenda. In particular, a new Australian government (elected in 2007) has embarked on wide-ranging reform of national housing policy and regulatory settings, and of most relevance to this study, has introduced a new large-scale incentive for private investment in affordable rental housing. In Western Australia where the study was initiated, a new state government (elected in 2008) appointed a Social Housing Task Force to address ways of achieving a large boost to the supply of social housing across that state. The task force advised that new methods to attract institutional investment from the private sector would be required to achieve an aspirational target in that state of an additional 20 000 social housing dwellings by 2020. Finally, an aspect of the project has been to consider (subject to available evidence) impacts that the global financial crisis (GFC) and the subsequent credit crunch have had on the performance of the housing financing models of different countries.