Rate My Professor Steven Rowley

Professor Steven Rowley serves as the John Curtin Distinguished Professor, the highest academic honour at Curtin University, and Professor of Property within the School of Accounting, Economics and Finance, part of the Faculty of Business and Law. He earned his BSc (Hons) and PhD from the University of Northumbria in 1998. Since joining Curtin University in 2007, Rowley has held significant leadership positions, including Director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) Curtin Research Centre and former Head of the Department of Property Studies. His expertise spans housing and property economics, with a strong emphasis on both Australian and UK contexts.

Rowley's research interests encompass affordable housing, housing affordability, urban regulation, subsidised private rental housing, land supply, and housing need. He has conducted extensive studies for diverse clients, including the UK government, Irish Government, European Union, Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, Department of Housing, WACOSS, and AHURI. With more than 90 publications to his name—comprising industry reports, peer-reviewed journal articles, and AHURI final reports—his influential works include "Housing affordability, housing stress and household wellbeing in Australia" (Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, 2012), "Bridging the Gap between Housing Stress and Financial Stress: The Case of Australia" (2015), "Modelling housing need in Australia to 2025" (AHURI Final Report No. 287, 2017), "Housing supply responsiveness in Australia: distribution, drivers and institutional settings" (AHURI Final Report No. 281, 2017), and "Measuring housing affordability: Scoping the real cost of housing" (2024). Rowley also teaches property development courses to final-year undergraduate students, contributing to the education of future professionals in the field. Through his leadership at AHURI and numerous research outputs, he has significantly influenced housing policy discussions and academic discourse on property markets and urban development in Australia.