The affordability of urban housing has become an important issue for academics and policymakers. The rental housing sector in Australia continues to be ranked as one of the most unaffordable in the developed world (The 15th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey), and thus it requires further investigation to improve the situation. Housing affordability measures such as the ratio and residual income methods do not explicitly identify the household segment(s) where affordability stress is most severe. This thesis undertakes three studies to test a new approach for analysing housing affordability focusing on the housing rental sector, namely a whole-of-life approach (WOLA). WOLA is based on a family life cycle concept. This approach incorporates a comprehensive tool to analyse housing affordability along the different stages of the family life cycle, considering all non-housing consumption expenditures (both basic and discretionary) necessary for healthy living. WOLA identifies the household segments with the most severe affordability stress and is applied to the emerging build-to-rent (i.e. the development, professional management, and control of large-scale residential property by institutional investors and developers specifically for the renter market) asset class in housing supply. This thesis aims to examine the question: Can the whole-of-life approach and build-to-rent strategy provide solutions to rental housing affordability challenges in Australia?