Critical Success Factors for Affordable Housing: Evidence From Lower-Middle Income and High-Income Economies

Abstract

The provision of affordable housing is a pressing challenge that exists around the globe. Successful completion of affordable housing projects is, therefore, of great significance in both developed and developing countries. The primary objective of this paper is to identify the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for affordable housing projects. To achieve this a comprehensive review of international literature is conducted to identify relevant factors. Nine groups of CSFs were formed, namely: Policy and government support; Land and planning process; Role of Financial Institutions and funding aspects; Sustainability; Designing and materials selection; Approvals, procedures, and clearances; Project management and value engineering; Infrastructure development of Project; and Facility Management. Subsequently, a survey is conducted with experts in India in order to validate and rank the criticality of the identified success factors in the Indian context. Expert rankings are provided for a range of affordable housing products. The results indicate that ‘policy and government support’, ‘land and planning process’, ‘role of financial institutions and funding aspects’ and ‘approvals, procedures and clearances’ are generally the top four CSFs for affordable housing projects. However, the results also indicate that importance of the CSFs was found to vary across different housing products (social, public, and private housing and rental and ownership models). A secondary objective of this paper is to identify differences in approaches to the implementation of the established CSFs in practice. The paper presents a case study comparison between India (a lower-middle income country) and the UK (a high income developed country). Pune in India and London in the UK are compared to determine how well countries of different income levels are achieving the established CSFs. Results suggests a variation in the local contexts in the delivery of successful affordable housing and it is found that developed countries are better at government support and policies, land planning, and incentives to developers for affordable housing delivery.

Critical Success Factors for Affordable Housing Projects in Nigeria

“…It is really important for government in Nigeria to be committed to affordable housing development, by formulating and implementing various policies and programs that address affordable housing. This finding is supported by Shah et al (2022) who ranked 'policy and government support' as the most important CSFs for affordable housing projects. In line with this, Adabre and Chan (2019) found 'inclusion of affordable unit policy in developer's projects' as CSF for affordable housing project.…”

“…This result is supported by UN Habitat (2011) which asserts that effective land policy can improve land governance, promote access to land and guide Africa's growing cities for long term sustainability. Whereas Shah et al (2022) ranked 'land and planning process' as the second important CSFs for affordable housing projects.…”

“…These finding is supported by previous studies. For instance, Shah et al (2022) found role of financial institutions and funding aspect as the third ranked CSFs for affordable housing projects. Similarly, UN Habitat (2011) and Adabre and Chan (2019) opined that access to, and the cost of housing finance are critical to housing affordability.…”

“…Thus, CSFs for affordable housing can be defined as those few tasks, conditions or circumstances that influence the achievement of housing affordability. Shah et al (2022) conducted a study to explore CSFs for affordable housing projects: the study established that policy and political will, land and planning process, well established financial institutions and financing aspects, sustainability dimensions, design and specification details, authorizations, procedures and approvals, effective project management and value engineering, as well as facilities management are the CSFs for affordable housing projects. Morale (2006) established CSFs for affordable housing as community support, clarity defined goals, appropriate design, financial market conditions, tax benefits, experienced project manager, and experienced project team members.…”