Bendix Anderson • 6 min read
For more than a century, 3010 Apartments has been home to some of the most vulnerable people in St. Louis, Mo.
The landmark building maintains hints to its history — the community room was once an ornate chapel. Common areas glow with the light from restored stained glass windows. This March, 3010 Apartments began a new life , welcoming residents with a variety of special needs to 58 new, sparkling one-bedroom apartments. This historic restoration is the centerpiece of an expansive effort to restore vitality to the city’s Midtown neighborhood, an effort led by the Salvation Army.
Joel Swerdlow • 8 min read
In one of the poorest neighborhoods in Washington, DC, Lydia’s House, a project of the nearby Living Word Church, offers 49 one-to-three bedroom apartments; all affordable— church-provided services available to tenants include educational and health programs. And in the Coolidge Corner neighborhood of Brookline, Massachusetts, just outside Boston and in one of the nation’s most trendy, affluent areas, the 1.8 acre site formerly home to St. Aidan’s Parish has become 59-units of mixed income housing, including nine condominiums in the renovated church, with stained glass windows and other unique features.
Timothy Leonhard • 10 min read
Debt financing in most cases is the most important component of the capital stack on nearly all affordable housing developments (as is the case in most any type of real estate development.) The average Loan to Value on affordable housing development ranges from 80% to 90%. The housing finance reform debate may continue in Washington with no end in sight. However in the interim, one constant in all discussions on the topic of reform is that any Federal government involvement in housing finance must have as one of its core missions support of multifamily affordable housing.
David A. Smith • 7 min read
LIHTC properties need increasing amounts of effective subsidy. Affordable housing always costs money, and the greater the desired affordability, the more money it costs (whether as income subsidy or concessionary financing), and in the main it must come from government. Because most people involved in making these government subsidy decisions are unschooled in development financing, their negotiations tend in the direction of adding policy goals that add cost – and hence increase the effective subsidy (or the net present value cost to government) required.
Thomas Amdur • 3 min read
Affordable housing finance is an ever evolving discipline and, as a result, an evergreen topic for this publication. This month’s issue highlights a number of interesting financing opportunities, tools, niches and programmatic changes that will be of interest to our readers. Keeping with this theme, I’d like to explore and expand on a few topics that are trending in our office following the NCHMA Spring Meeting on March 31 and the PTEE Roadshow in Indianapolis on April 9.
David M. Abromowitz • 4 min read
As of Tax Day, at least four major candidates have declared they are running for President. By the time we get to NH&RA’s Summer Institute, we could have a baker’s dozen or more candidates.
Darryl Hicks • 11 min read
In Geoff’s 26 years, USA Properties has grown from seven employees to 400 and developed, through construction or acquisition and rehabilitation, over 11,000 units of affordable housing for families and seniors throughout California and Nevada. In addition, its subsidiary, USA Multifamily Management, manages its own projects in a portfolio consisting of over 10,600 units—two-thirds of it senior housing. Tax Credit Advisor sat down with Brown to discuss his passions and priorities.
Joel Swerdlow • 6 min read
Solar power is becoming more of an economic and technological possibility for developers of multiunit affordable housing—the cost of solar panels, for example, has been dropping exponentially since 2008.
Thom Amdur • 8 min read
In February, for the first time ever, NH&RA hosted a Public Housing Joint Venture Symposium in Key Largo, Florida where it convened HUD representatives with more than 100 developers, syndicators, lenders, and other members of the affordable housing community. The one-day event preceded the 2015 NH&RA Annual Meeting.
Marty Bell • 8 min read
To a group of American housing developers and financiers, four days in Havana is a tall mojito loaded with both spices and bitters. Make that a pitcher of mojitos, for walking the streets of a city frozen in the ‘50s surrounded by turquoise and lavender cars with protruding fins that your grandfather used to drive, you cannot help but feel a bit inebriated.
John W. Gahan III • 9 min read
The formation of tax credit financial partnerships to build affordable housing can be a joyous occasion. Both general and investor limited partners are optimistic. Regrettably, years later, the exit can be mayhem.
Joel Swerdlow • 7 min read
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have recently created new affordable housing products that provide borrowers with ways to access low-cost loans that finance affordable housing for the 15-plus years of the building’s compliance life.