Housing Finance in Emerging Markets

The global conference on Housing Finance in Emerging Markets aims to address many of the challenges facing financial policymakers and practitioners dealing with housing finance. In many developing countries, housing finance systems are small, unstable and fragmented.  Because of weak property titling and registration systems and other factors, an excessive proportion of these assets cannot be used as collateral for housing finance. Lack of access to housing finance in turn makes housing unaffordable for much of the population.  At the same time—because of the serious difficulty in gaining access to housing finance and frequent housing supply distortions leading to high housing prices—participants in these markets perceive a greater need for subsidies, while lenders face higher exposures to risk.
The conference responds to the critical need among financial sector officials and practitioners for a systematic discussion about the development of strong housing finance markets. It will address step-by-step the process of building a housing finance system: property rights, collateral and foreclosure laws, fundamentals of mortgage lending, simple forms of bond funding, and social housing policy. The program will combine presentations from experts with panels and discussions to explore individual country experiences.