Narendra Modi, Malik Riaz, and Mike Labbé should talk. Together, they can provide solutions to end the housing crisis for the low-income households in India and Pakistan.

South Asia alone is home to one of the largest homeless populations in the world. In India, 170 million individuals live in slums. In the neighbouring Pakistan, the national housing shortfall is estimated at 9 million houses.

However, unlike Pakistan, India has decided to address the national housing crisis.

Prime Minister Modi’s budget on February 28 is expected to disclose the details of an ambitious plan to build 20 million housing units at the cost of $2 trillion in the next seven years. Once completed, the plan will not only house the homeless or the partially homed 170 million, it is also likely to boost the Indian economy for decades, by engaging millions in the development of one of the largest infrastructure development programs.

There is, however, one big challenge. Even when affordable housing is built for the low-income households, speculators and others manipulate the markets for fast returns. The same units are resold at much higher prices, thus effectively reducing the affordable housing stock.

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The affordable housing units in Bahria Town in Rawalpindi, named Awami Villas, were initially sold by the developer for less than a million rupees. Just a few years later, the same units are being sold for two to three million rupees, making them unaffordable for the low-income households.

The real challenge is to find a way to sustain the supply of affordable units when affordable housing becomes unaffordable in the resale market.