Tax Credit Advisor Article Archives

After more than a decade’s abandonment, a beloved Chicago landmark has come back to life.

New multifamily housing construction frequently includes a mix of market-rate apartments and low-income units.

Seattle, WA—The rise of micro apartments in urban America’s strongest real estate markets is often branded as a hot new trend. But really, it is a reenactment of the way U.S. cities have long worked.

In the early 1970s, the well-heeled residents of Aspen and Telluride, CO, faced a problem. Though they were often part-timers from the two coasts and other major cities who spent only weeks at a time in the two ski resort towns, their presence had priced out the very people they needed to run the towns and local businesses.

For every employee seeking affordable housing, there is an employer wishing the employee finds it – and not knowing how it can be created. Yet what employers can do is enormous, if we show them how to deploy the resources they already have.

High housing costs are an urban American problem, and there is boundless debate on how to address it. Should developers be allowed to build unfettered, or be restricted on the prices they charge and number of units they erect? Should individual buyers compete in open markets, or get government subsidies? Should public officials be Yimby or Nimby?

On a taxi ride into Denver I counted 27 cranes – a staggering amount of construction. An article in the local paper reported that developers delivered 3,246 new multifamily apartments in the first quarter alone and 10,000 in total are expected to be delivered by year end! A local real estate executive told me that 100 millennials move to Denver every day.

I grew up in a suburban community of 18,000 in which the homes were built on potato fields and mostly bought with the help of the G.I. Bill. Walking to school, I would say hello to the local firemen who were playing handball against the wall of the firehouse. When the cops were called by neighbors to break up a backyard party that got too loud, we knew them by name.

John Weld Peck has been at the forefront of affordable housing finance in the United States for over 40 years.

If you’re reading an issue of Tax Credit Advisor, it’s probably safe to assume you have noticed a drop in equity pricing since the election.

The end of 2016 brought both good news and bad news for affordable housing developer the Pacific Companies.

If U.S. Senators weigh in on America’s housing crisis, they need to understand the complexity of the issues. Of course we need more affordable housing almost everywhere, but the problems go beyond that.