This report presents the latest insights into new ways of financing much-needed affordable rental housing in Australia, especially by attracting large-scale institutional investors into the field. It builds on 2012/13 research led by the City Futures Research Centre (UNSW) into prospects for such a direction, as informed by a high-level panel of industry experts and policymakers. To update that research, this report revisits our previous findings, reviews recent domestic and international housing investment developments, and summarises insights and experiences generated from a new round of contacts with local experts.

As highlighted in this report, Australia’s lack of recent progress in this realm contrasts with that of the UK in the same period. There, a variety of strategies including public subsidies, leveraging existing assets, aggregation vehicles (e.g. The Housing Finance Corporation), and government guarantees for capital market financing of both market and affordable rental products have been successfully combined to drive a switch from public funding and mortgage financing (both in short supply following the Global Financial Crisis) to institutional financing of social, affordable, and market rental housing forms.