
Rental housing mainly comprises of ‘shelters’ for homeless, ‘social rental housing’ for urban poor and ‘need-based rental housing’ for migrant labourers, single women, men, students or other target groups. Then there are also ‘market-driven rental housing’ and ‘institutional rental housing’ such as hostels and paying guest accommodations for working class.
As per census 2011 data, 11.09 million houses are vacant in urban areas. While in India rental housing is ignored, the global scenario is drastically different. Social rental housing accounts for between 20 to 35 per cent of the total housing stock in countries such as Netherlands, the UK, Austria and Hong Kong.

Such poor ratio in India is mainly due to lack of proper regulations and framework, low rental yield, problems with repossession and hike in rent. This info graph shows the global position of India at a glance.


(Image credits: indiatimes, IDFC, IMF report- Global Housing Watch)