This short article is part of our '20 high impact research stories' series. This has been assembled to mark two decades of the City Futures Research Centre 2005-2025. Each of the 20 stories revisits an influential research study completed over those 20 years, linking it with related Centre projects and outcomes. A brochure version of all 20 stories will be published later in 2025.

In the housing field, as much as in other policy domains, cross-country comparisons can sharpen understanding of domestic approaches and systems, as well as potentially helping to inform alternative policy options and choices. Especially in since the late 2010s, many CFRC housing research projects have included investigation of how specific policy challenges familiar in Australia are addressed in comparator countries.  

Cross-country comparison of home ownership policy 

A high impact project that exemplifies research of this type was our 2022 AHURI study ‘Assisting first home buyers: An international policy review’. Led by Prof Hal Pawson and also involving Dr Chris Martin, Prof Julie Lawson (RMIT University) and Prof Stephen Whelan (University of Sydney) and others, the project compared first homebuyer (FHB) assistance programs in Australia and seven comparator countries. These being Canada, Finland, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Singapore and the UK. 

A key finding was that, by comparison with comparator country norms, Australian first home ownership policies have, for decades past, focused almost exclusively on demand-side assistance. This refers to measures involving a benefit directly received by the consumer, effectively boosting FHB-purchasing power. Particularly in Finland, Singapore and the UK, supply-side measures have been much more in evidence.  

Notably, consistent with our report’s recommendations, the Australian Labor Party’s 2025 election platform included a major new supply-side FHB program: the direct provision of newly built homes ring-fenced to this group. 

As well as having generated 25 citations to date, the report also formed the basis for an article in Australian Economic Papers, and evoked an invitation to discuss its findings from the UK Government. 

Earlier international comparative housing research 

The Centre’s tradition of international comparative housing research can be traced back to the 2007 report authored by Hon Prof Vivienne Milligan and Prof Julie Lawson (RMIT University), International trends in housing and policy responses. From a scan of 12 countries in Europe and North America, the report reviewed social policies aimed at assisting lower-income households in securing appropriate and affordable housing, and ‘to promote good ideas for policy action for consideration by Australian policy makers’. 

More recent CFRC contributions to international comparative research tradition have included Dr Laura Crommelin’s 2018 AHURI research on the emerging issue of AirBnB as a housing market disruptor in Australia and many other countries. Drawing on review of short term rental housing regulation in 11 cities, the report identified three distinct approaches, and recommended that a ‘notificatory’ approach would be most suitable in Australian conditions.  

In a similar realm was Dr Chris Martin’s 2018 international comparative review of broader private rental sector (PRS) regulation. Benchmarked against the 10 other countries surveyed, Australia stood out in exhibiting high similarity between the profiles of the PRS and the wider housing system. This implies a high degree of integration, particularly between private rental and owner-occupier markets. Hence, the policy settings and market conditions which apply to one may be transmitted readily to the other. 

More recently, in a project under the UNSW-ACOSS Poverty and Inequality Partnership, Prof Hal Pawson and Dr Chris Martin collaborated with researchers from the Universities of Glasgow and Reading to analyse the housing market impacts and housing policy responses of the COVID-19 pandemic across seven countries including Australia. 

Housing Policy in Australia: An international comparative dimension 

Drawing on many of these studies, an international comparative theme runs throughout the well-cited 2020 book Housing Policy in Australia: A case for system reform, by Prof Hal Pawson, Hon Prof Vivienne Milligan  and the late Assoc Prof Judith Yates (University of Sydney).