Abstract Interventions for sustainability attainment in affordable housing have received increasing attention from policy makers globally. However, policy-makers’ interventions for sustainable affordable housing markets can be inefficient and even counterproductive. As such, among the diverse interventions available, a vital question is what are the potential efficient interventions? To address this question, the views of affordable housing experts (also knowledgeable in sustainable housing) around the world were solicited via a questionnaire survey to identify critical success factors (CSFs) for sustainable affordable housing. Relative significance analysis of the data led to the identification of 13 CSFs. Furthermore, agreement analysis revealed that there is no good agreement between respondents from the academic sector and those from the industrial sector on the ranking of the 13 CSFs. Moreover, through factor analysis, the CSFs were grouped into four underlying components: developer's enabling CSFs; household-demand enabling CSFs; mixed land use CSFs; land use planning CSFs. The research findings seek to inform policy-makers on the CSFs for efficient resource utilization for sustainable affordable housing market. Future study would establish a relationship between the CSFs and success criteria for sustainable affordable housing.