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Copyright © McKinsey & Company 2014
McKinsey Global Institute
October 2014
A blueprint for addressing
the global affordable
housing challenge
Jonathan Woetzel
Sangeeth Ram
Jan Mischke
Nicklas Garemo
Shirish Sankhe
Preface
Providing decent housing for citizens is a perennial challenge for nations around
the world. From slum residents in the developing world to middle-income
households in expensive global capitals, hundreds of millions of people struggle
to find decent housing that they can afford without severe financial stress. The
economic and human toll of the housing affordability gap is enormous. We
estimate that 330 million households are affected around the world and, under
current trends, by 2025 the number of households that occupy unsafe and
inadequate housing or are financially stretched by housing costs could reach
440 million—or 1.6 billion people.
In this research we identify ways to narrow the affordable housing gap in the next
decade. This will require clear aspirations by policy makers to improve housing
affordability and the use of four levers that we identify to unlocking land at the
right cost in appropriate locations, reducing construction and operations costs,
and improving access to low-cost financing. Together with an integrated and
city-specific delivery approach, these measures can put housing within reach of
households making 50 to 80 percent of their city’s median income. The levers
also can make housing more affordable and improve housing outcomes for
households earning less than 50 percent of median income.
This research is a collaboration between the McKinsey Global Institute, the firm’s
business and economic research unit, and the firm’s Infrastructure and Social
Sector practices. The work was led by Jonathan Woetzel, an MGI director in
Shanghai, Jan Mischke, an MGI senior fellow, and Sangeeth Ram, a partner
in Dubai. The research team was led by Aditi Ramdorai and Ayoub Semaan
and included Stephanie Brown, Nicola Chiara, Ashwin Hasyagar, Ryo Ishida,
Jhonny Jha, Dina Shalaby, Shashwat Shukla, Maximilian Stoiber, and
Richard Sun. Valuable guidance was provided by Nicklas Garemo, a director in
Abu Dhabi; Shirish Sankhe, a director in Mumbai; and Jorg Schubert, a partner
in Dubai.
We are grateful for the advice and input of many McKinsey & Company
colleagues, including Tobias Baer, Albert Bollard, Killian Clarke, Tony D’Emidio,
Mikhail Dmitriev, Jakub Fast, Lucia Fiorito, Tony Goland, Johan Hesselsoe,
Ivan Jelic, Szabolcs Kemeny, Antti Koulumies, Oscar Lingqvist, Rachid Maalouli,
Murdock Martin, Vadim Pokotilo, Björn Sass, Sebastian Schneider,
Yakov Sergienko, Sapna Sharma, Venkataramamoorthy Sreeramagiri, and
Raghuram Talluri. Geoffrey Lewis provided editorial support, and the team
would like to thank Marisa Carder, MGI senior graphic designer; Julie Philpot,
MGI’s editorial production manager; Rebeca Robboy, MGI external relations
manager, Kay Scott, Infrastructure external senior communications manager; and
McKinsey’s geospatial analytics team.
We also thank our external contributors who helped us in specific areas.
Friedemann Roy, global product lead housing finance access, International
Finance Corporation, co-developed the financing chapter of this report.
Christian Prilhofer, an expert on industrial production of buildings and president
of Prilhofer Consulting, gave us valuable input on industrial approaches
to construction. P S Jayakumar, managing director of Value & Budget
Housing Corporation, shared his unique perspective on India’s affordable
housing challenge.
We are indebted to the many experts from industry and academia who have
contributed to this work. In particular, we thank Richard Barkham, global chief
economist, CBRE Group; Luca Bertalot, secretary general of the European
Covered Bond Council. Alain Bertaud, senior research scholar at the New
York University Stern Urbanization Project; Inga Björk-Klevby, former deputy
executive director, United Nations Human Settlements Program; Thomas Davidoff,
assistant professor, Strategy and Business Economics Division, Sauder School
of Business, University of British Columbia; Nader Elhajj, director for the Middle
East, Africa, and Europe, FRAMECAD; Liu Thai-Ker, senior director, RSP
Architects Planners and Engineers, chairman of the Centre for Liveable Cities
advisory board, and former chief executive officer, Housing and Development
Board of Singapore; Christophe Lalande, leader, housing unit at UN-Habitat;
Charles S. Laven, founder, Forsyth Street Advisors; Benjamin T. Metcalf, deputy
assistant secretary, US Department of Housing and Urban Development;
Jerry Speyer, chairman and co-CEO, Tishman Speyer; Rafael Tuts, chief, Urban
Environment and Planning Branch, UN-Habitat; and Simon Walley, coordinator,
Housing Finance Program, Capital Markets Practice, World Bank Group.
We also thank our academic adviser, Martin N. Baily, the Bernard L. Schwartz
Chair in Economic Policy Development at the Brookings Institution.
Richard Dobbs
Director, McKinsey Global Institute
Seoul
James Manyika
Director, McKinsey Global Institute
San Francisco
Jonathan Woetzel
Director, McKinsey Global Institute
Shanghai
October 2014
Contents
Executive summary 1
1. Affordable housing is a global challenge and opportunity 23
2. Narrowing the affordability gap 39
Using an analytical approach to set aspirations across a
housing ladder 41
Four levers can substantially narrow the affordability gap 47
Unlocking land supply at the right location is the most
critical step in providing affordable housing 50
An industrial approach is essential to deliver housing
quickly, on a large scale, and at the desired cost 76
Efficiencies in operations and maintenance can reduce
costs and preserve sound housing stock 100
Expanding access to lending and reducing financing
costs can help buyers and developers of affordable housing 108
3. Creating the right delivery platform for each city 133
4. Diagnosing city performance in affordable housing 159
Appendix A.
Calculating the affordability gap 185
Appendix B.
Detailed list of sub‑levers for affordable housing programs 188
Bibliography 195
IN BRIEF
A blueprint for addressing the global
affordable housing challenge
Access to decent, affordable housing is so fundamental to the health and well-being of
people and the smooth functioning of economies that it is imbedded in the United Nations
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet in developing and advanced economies alike,
cities struggle with the dual challenges of housing their poorest citizens and providing housing
at a reasonable cost for low- and middle-income populations. In this report, we look at the
dimensions of this problem—and how it will grow over the next decade—and offer a set of
solutions that can narrow the affordable housing gap. Among our key findings:
We estimate that 330 million urban households around the world live in substandard
housing or are financially stretched by housing costs. Some 200 million households in Asia,
Africa, and Latin America live in slums; in the United States, the European Union, Japan,
and Australia, more than 60 million households are financially stretched by housing costs.
Based on current trends in urban migration and income growth, we estimate that by 2025,
about 440 million urban households around the world—at least 1.6 billion people—would
occupy crowded, inadequate, and unsafe housing or will be financially stretched.
The housing affordability gap is equivalent to $650 billion per year, or 1 percent of global
GDP. In some of the least affordable cities, the gap exceeds 10 percent of local GDP.
To replace today’s substandard housing and build additional units needed by 2025 would
require an investment of $9 trillion to $11 trillion for construction; with land, the total cost
could be $16 trillion. Of this, $1 trillion to $3 trillion may have to come from public funding.
We identify four ways to reduce the cost of delivering affordable housing by 20 to
50 percent: unlock land at the right location (the most important lever), reduce construction
costs through value engineering and industrial approaches, increase operations and
maintenance efficiency, and reduce financing costs for buyers and developers.
These largely market-based measures can benefit households in all income groups and,
with some cross subsidies, can reduce costs sufficiently to make housing affordable (at
30 percent or less of income) for households earning 50 to 80 percent of area median
income, in all but the costliest cities.
Affordable housing is an overlooked opportunity for developers, investors, and financial
institutions. Building units for 106 million more poor urban households by 2025 could
require more than $200 billion a year and account for 7 percent of mortgage originations.
The over-arching message from this research is that standard approaches to affordable
housing will yield only standard—and inadequate—results. Cities need to think more broadly
and creatively about a housing ladder that includes affordable housing but accommodates
citizens of all income groups and their changing needs. For the poorest citizens, the ladder
may start with very basic housing that places people in decent accommodations and
connects them to employment and society. And, rather than despair over budget constraints,
cities and housing agencies need to collaborate with the private sector and find more
funding options.
Description:people globally within a decade, leaving more than a third of all urban dwellers in unsafe or inadequate housing or financially stretched by housing costs. The four levers that we lay out in this report, combined with effective local delivery, can bring decent homes within reach of hundreds of mill
