ABSTRACT
In the past ten to 20 years, governments in various countries have introduced or reinforced market principles in their housing systems. As a consequence, social landlords should have increased opportunities to adopt a more market-oriented approach towards the management of their housing stock. Nevertheless, in many countries governments still have a substantial influence on the social rented housing sector. In this paper we analyse the influence of statutory regulations on the management of the social rented housing stock in four European countries and in Australia, in order to assess to what extent these regulations help or impede the development of a market-oriented asset management. It is concluded that the social landlords in most of the countries studied have some autonomy which enables a more market-oriented asset management. Nevertheless, the assumption that giving greater freedom to market forces and reducing government influence and support lead to a more market-oriented asset management by itself does not hold for all countries.