This report is designed to evaluate the concept of ‘housing submarkets’ in terms of its relevance for social housing analysis and to assess its usefulness in informing management and administrative practices in the social housing sector.

The submarket concept has not been employed in social housing analysis, given that ‘markets’ are typically seen as locations of exchange through consumer and producer responses to price signals. By contrast, in social housing, client and organisational decision-making revolves around administrative fiat. Nevertheless the private market public administration boundary may not be as sharp as this implies. It may be possible to extend the principle of submarkets to social housing.