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While a growing number of national social housing strategies rely on the work of hybrid entities blending social and commercial tasks, the state/market dualism continues to dominate the conceptual landscape of housing research. This exploratory paper develops a conceptual approach to support research into the role of not-for-profit social entrepreneurs in the housing market. It looks for insights within their ‘hybrid’ status, spanning state and market, and subject to multiple sets of institutional conditions. Four frames of hybrid identity are developed, and then substantiated via a discussion of two different sectors of not-for-profit social entrepreneurs in Australia and the Netherlands. As the growth trajectory of each sector is traced and the construction of hybrid identity is explored from both public and private perspectives, institutional pressures are revealed that set the current context for development. This brings forth implications for existing conceptual tools, as well as directions for new research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]