Access to a safe dwelling is one of the necessities of life and an indicator to reveal the economic development of a country. In Pakistan, however, the majority of the people do not have their dwelling rather have to spend their life in renting homes or in slums. To overcome the housing shortfall, the State Bank of Pakistan has pronounced a low-cost housing scheme for the poor and the low-income segment of the society while the Islamic banking sector also offers ijarah facility to purchase or to construct own dwelling and claims to work in the objective of Islamic legal system. Therefore, this study aims to analyze critically, ijarah and state-owned low-cost housing schemes from the public insight.