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To effectively deliver affordable housing, Governments need to develop housing strategies that are resilient to, and adapt with, evolving political circumstances, create opportunities in times of economic change and that inspire strong leadership, new research finds.

In the UK, government ‘Rent to buy’ programs are ways to help lower income households to afford to buy a home. In Australia ‘Rent to buy’ contracts offered by private vendors are very different arrangements and have even been banned by one state.

Written in consultation with Professor Graeme Cooper and Manuel Makas, Director and Head of Real Estate at Greenwoods & Herbert Smith Freehills. In the May 2017 Budget, the Federal Government introduced a tax measure to ‘stimulate affordable housing through Managed Investment Trusts’, but just what does the proposal offer?

A recent cluster of polls from different polling companies shows that the issue of housing and housing affordability is of rising concern for Australian households. This is happening against a backdrop of house price increases, rising housing need and the falling proportion of households able to find a home in social housing.

For an Australian household to be recorded as being in housing affordability stress (HAS) it has to be in the bottom 40 per cent of Australia’s income distribution and have housing costs that are greater than 30 per cent of its income. So what can the Census tell us about the incomes and thresholds of HAS for households in the first (Q1) and second (Q2) quintile (i.e. in the 0% to 20% range and the 21% to 40% range) of Australia’s income distribution?