Sha Liu

Research Interests

Housing policy Urban planning Urban Policy Urban and Regional Economics

Dr Sha Liu

ARC Grant-Funded Researcher B

Office of Education, Behavioural and Social Sciences

College of Education, Behavioural and Social Sciences

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD (as Co-Supervisor) - email supervisor to discuss availability.

Sha Liu is a policy-driven researcher specialising in housing financialisation, urban regeneration, and comparative housing policy. Her research explores the intersection of international investment, housing markets, and urban development, with a strong emphasis on policy innovation. She has extensive experience managing externally funded research projects and conducting both qualitative and quantitative analyses, leading to high-impact publications in top-ranked journals. In addition to her research, Sha has a strong teaching record in urban planning, housing studies, and urban economics, with expertise in curriculum development and student mentorship at leading Australian universities.

Sha’s research interests span two key areas. First, she investigates housing financialisation, cross-border investment in housing markets, and housing policy innovation. Second, her research examines broader urban challenges, including compact city development, land rezoning, urban regeneration, and the role of universities in property-led urban development. Sha’s research aims to inform more equitable and sustainable urban futures through evidence-based policy and planning.

Date Position Institution name
2025 - ongoing ARC Grant-Funded Researcher B University of Adelaide
2022 - 2024 Postdoctoral Research Fellow Macquarie University
2021 - 2021 Research Assistant Western Sydney University
2016 - 2021 Research Associate University of Sydney

Date Type Title Institution Name Country Amount
2018 Research Award HDR Journal Publication Prize 2018 The University of Sydney Australia -
2015 Scholarship Sancta Sophia College Postgraduate Participation & Excellence Scholarship 2015 The University of Sydney Australia -
2014 Research Award Best Paper in Science Section 2014 The University of Sydney Australia -

Language Competency
Chinese (Mandarin) Can read, write, speak, understand spoken and peer review
English Can read, write, speak, understand spoken and peer review

Date Institution name Country Title
2015 - 2021 University of Sydney Australia PhD
Lancaster University United Kingdom Master
Sichuan University China Bachelor

Year Citation
2025 Gillon, C., Easthope, H., Pinnegar, S., Ruming, K., Crommelin, L., & Liu, S. (2025). The ‘rezoned property’ as a site of ontological security: the case of collective sales. Housing Studies, 1-22.
DOI
2025 Liu, S., Ruming, K., Gillon, C., Pinnegar, S., Crommelin, L., & Easthope, H. (2025). “It’s Like Winning the Lottery But Without Buying a Lottery Ticket”: Housing Market Impacts of Compact City Planning, Upzoning, and Collective Sales. Urban Policy and Research, 43(1), 33-51.
DOI Scopus2 WoS3
2025 Ruming, K. J., Liu, S., Pinnegar, S., Crommelin, L., Gillon, C., & Easthope, H. (2025). Delivering suburban densification: Diverse resident groups and strategies of support and resistance. Urban Studies, 62(5), 868-890.
DOI Scopus6 WoS4
2024 Ruming, K., & Liu, S. (2024). Universities as asset class: Private sector investment in property for universities. Geoforum, 157, 104138.
DOI Scopus3 WoS2
2024 Easthope, H., Crommelin, L., Gillon, C., Pinnegar, S., Ruming, K., & Liu, S. (2024). Redeveloping the compact city: the challenges of strata collective sales. Journal of Property, Planning and Environmental Law, 16(1), 51-67.
DOI Scopus5 WoS5
2022 Benedict, R., Gurran, N., Gilbert, C., Hamilton, C., Rowley, S., & Liu, S. (2022). Private sector involvement in social and affordable housing. Ahuri Final Report, (388).
DOI Scopus7
2017 Liu, S., & Gurran, N. (2017). Chinese investment in Australian housing: push and pull factors and implications for understanding international housing demand. International Journal of Housing Policy, 17(4), 489-511.
DOI Scopus26 WoS20

Year Citation
2024 Liu, S., & Ruming, K. (2024). University incubators as sites of creativity and innovation: The case of the Macquarie University Incubator. In Routledge Companion to Creativity and the Built Environment (pp. 530-542).
DOI Scopus3
2018 Liu, S., & Gurran, N. (2018). Chinese Investment in Australian housing: push and pull factors and implications for understanding international housing demand. In D. Rogers, & S. Y. Koh (Eds.), The Globalisation of Real Estate The Politics and Practice of Foreign Real Estate Investment. Routledge.

Year Citation
2020 Xu, X., Liu, S., Luo, L., Luo, Y., & Liu, X. (2020). Shared Transport in a Digitalized World: A Case Study of Shared Bicycles through Data Mining and Visualization. In Proceedings 2020 4th Annual International Conference on Data Science and Business Analytics Icdsba 2020 (pp. 131-133). IEEE.
DOI Scopus1

Year Citation
2022 Liu, S., & Gurran, N. (2022). Foreign investment in Australian housing: global housing demand and impacts in the local housing market. Poster session presented at the meeting of Australasian Cities National Conference (SOAC) 2021.
2022 Gilbert, C., Liu, S., & Gurran, N. (2022). Can planning incentives deliver affordable housing in our cities and regions? Evidence from NSW. Poster session presented at the meeting of Australasian Cities National Conference (SOAC).

Postdoctoral Research Translation Scheme 2025: Foreign Investment Policies and Their Impact on Local Housing Markets: An International Comparative Analysis, funded by the Henry Halloran Urban and Regional Research Initiative (HHURRI) 

Date Topic Presented at Institution Country
2025 - 2025 Foreign investment in the Built-To-Rent (BTR) housing sector in Australia: a changing regulatory perspective Australasian Housing Researchers Conference (AHRC) 2025 The University of Sydney Australia
2024 - 2024 'It’s like winning the lottery but without buying a lottery ticket’: housing market impacts of planning, up-zoning, and collective sales Joint APNHR - AHRC Conference 2024 Macquarie University Australia
2023 - 2023 Universities as investment products: exploring private sector engagement in university property The Annual Institute of Australian Geographers Conference (IAG) 2023 Macquarie University Australia
2021 - 2021 Foreign investment in Australian housing: global housing demand and impacts in the local housing market The State of Australasian Cities National Conference (SOAC) 2021 The University of Sydney Australia
2017 - 2017 Quantitative analysis of possible determinants of Chinese foreign investment in Australian housing market 2017 Housing Theory Symposium The University of Sydney Australia
2016 - 2016 Analysing the impact of China’s recent domestic housing policies on the global real estate market Suzhou Urbanisation and the Production of Space Conference The University of Sydney China
2016 - 2016 Foreign Investment in Global Housing: Understanding the impacts of China’s domestic housing policy changes on international investment demand Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) 2016 The University of Sydney United States
2016 - 2016 Foreign Investment in Australian Housing: effects of China’s domestic housing policy changes on international investment demand Super-rich Symposium 2016 The University of Sydney Australia
2015 - 2015 Foreign investment in Australian housing: effects of China’s domestic housing policy changes on international investment demand The Festival of Urbanism (FoU) 2015 The University of Sydney Australia
2015 - 2015 Chinese domestic housing policies: understanding investor responses and implications for international housing markets The Asia-Pacific Network for Housing Research Conference (APNHR) 2015 The University of Sydney Korea, Republic of
2015 - 2015 Chinese foreign investment in Australian housing markets: understanding investor and developer motivations Australasian Housing Researchers Conference (AHRC) 2015 The University of Sydney Australia

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