Housing finance in Slovakia on the threshold of joining EU

Slovakia joined EU in May 2004. Her housing problems are similar to neigbouring ìnew European countriesî countries: large prefabricated multifamily housing stock, lower housing affordability, inadequate size of the rental housing stock, progress in the development of housing finance, that is unfortunatelly not yet sustainable from the long-term perspective. In the paper the data on the housing finance development are presented with particular emphasis to the funding of development of the rental housing stock, the preservation of the existing housing stock. The size of the rental housing stock was seriously reduced in the last decades because of massive ill-conceived privatization. These problems are closely related to the decisions made on the municipal housing policy level, access to finance, further development of the institutional framework in the housing sector, etc. The augmentation fo the capacity of the housing sector to carry out its mission can be strengthened by the introduction of the non-profit housing. The sector does not yet exist in Slovakia and its introduction is connected to with non-negligable risks We describe the barriers to the introduction of the sector and try to show the possible ways of their overcoming. The generalization are made on the experiences of authors with preparatory works on the introduction of the non-profits.