The barriers to re-purposing not-for-profit real property assets

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the barriers to the re-purposing of under-utilised real property assets owned by Australian not-for-profit (“NFP”) organisations for affordable housing provision. Design/methodology/approach – Exploratory research was undertaken with five diverse (non-housing) NFP organisations. Findings – The research indicates that NFP organisations who are not principally engaged in housing provision, but hold surplus or under-utilised land and property assets, may be willing partners in affordable housing provision. However a range of institutional and structural barriers would need to be overcome for housing developments to occur on under-utilised NFP organisations land holdings. Research limitations/implications – The small scale of the study limits generalisation from the research findings. However, the findings point to an opportunity for innovation in housing land supply that warrants larger scale research. Practical implications – This research provides evidence that a source of well-located land is potentially available for future affordable housing provision, but that NFP organisations would require skills and financial resourcing in order to make their land available for this purpose. Social implications – Well-located land is a major cost input for the provision of affordable housing, and the re-purposing of NFP organisations land or assets for affordable housing could make a significant contribution to the stock of social housing. Originality/value – There has been no research on how NFP organisations view opportunities to repurpose their land for affordable housing despite this sector being actively encouraged to do so. This paper reports the first Australian study of dispositions and barriers to the re-use NFP organisations land assets.