Tax Credit Advisor Article Archives

In this issue, we look to the states to see when and how this new funding will make its way into local affordable housing markets around the country. As the director of the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency notes, this is a “bespoke” industry where no two deals are exactly alike. That presents a challenge as states are figuring out how to deploy all these new resources and are stepping up to the plate to do so equitably and effectively. Many states will use it to help address the housing disparities JCHS cites in its report. Make no mistake, this investment is such that hasn’t been seen since the start of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program decades ago.

State housing finance agencies (HFA), for more than a generation the primary delivery system for federally-funded affordable construction, rehab and preservation, are playing a newer role in the continuing recovery from the pandemic: emergency assistance provider.

For more than 35 years, the success of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) has hinged on the effectiveness of its public-private partnership (P3).

As an influx of federal dollars are expected for affordable housing, state housing finance agencies (HFAs) plan to use the money not only to increase existing programs, but in some cases, see this as a historic opportunity to make significant changes.

Private placements may make up to three quarters of the affordable multifamily housing bond market, but that doesn’t mean that publicly offered bonds are a weak sister. In fact, growth in tax-exempt bond public offerings may be even larger than the increase in private placements in 2021.

In recent years, the rising cost of traditional construction—we’re looking at you, lumber—has pushed some affordable housing producers to explore modular options.

Affordable housing production is needed in markets with high job growth, in order to accommodate the increased demand from inbound workers.

As the pandemic has demonstrated, for people to be healthy, their homes must be healthy, and for homes to be healthy, their communities must be healthy. Work we’ve been doing for the last half a year in Black neighborhoods of Milwaukee has uncovered six deeply rooted and mutually reinforcing causes of unhealthy neighborhoods due to contagious underinvestment:

If you used painting as a metaphor for mixed-income housing projects, Nashville’s Envision Cayce would need to be displayed on a very large canvas indeed. Perhaps on the scale of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. And if everything works out the way it has started, people may well be calling it a masterpiece soon.

Low interest rates are enabling refinancing on multifamily projects that can free up money for developers to use on additional affordable and workforce housing production.

Exciting things are going on in Wisconsin. There’s a pilot program soon getting underway that will examine opportunities for expanding access to affordable workforce housing.

This issue of Tax Credit Advisor focuses on asset management. We have several engaging articles on how to determine when to sell or hold properties, the relative success of using private placement and a look at how property managers and owners are preparing to restart inspections this month after being on hold for more than a year during the pandemic.