Mark Fogarty Author Archives

Mixed-use housing is poised for a huge expansion in the post-COVID era, as at-risk populations, especially seniors, are going to want more goods and services available to them under one, health-secure roof.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created some thorny property insurance problems for owners/managers: Increased premiums. Lawsuits backed by deep pockets. The need to factor force majeure into costs. A spike in multifamily severity claims.

A recently published examination of how to beat the affordable housing squeeze presented by rising demand and falling production reveals how developers think they can maximize production through creative approaches to cutting costs.

Affordable assisted living can be a triple winner if it is done right using Medicaid waivers, according to a developer that has an active portfolio of properties in Indiana.

It’s an idyllic scene out of a past when COVID-19 was not disrupting senior communities across the country: Seniors in lawn chairs and wheelchairs have gathered outside their assisted living facility on a sunny day, enjoying a performance by a singer with a guitar.

There is a “tremendous need” to preserve existing affordable housing in California, according to Jonathan F.P. Rose of the Jonathan Rose Companies.

Planning a workforce housing development at 65 to 120 percent of area median income ordinarily might mean cutting it off from the possibility of equity investments, since Low Income Housing Tax Credit equity eligibility generally tops out at 60 percent AMI, absent income averaging.

When a hurricane has devastated a project and the developer wants to get rehab work done before the next deadly storm season, speed is of the essence.

Renovating affordable housing units in San Francisco isn’t very affordable. Redoing the 202 units at Eastern Park Apartments, for instance, is estimated to cost $171 million when finished in this ultra-high-cost housing market.

It is a little counterintuitive to think of public housing, especially the big high rise towers whose problems have often been resolved by dynamiting them, as historic.

The Norris Homes project in Philadelphia has a little bit of everything. It is a Department of Housing and Urban Development Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) project. It is a Choice Neighborhoods Initiative. It uses Low Income Housing Tax Credits. It is a transit-oriented development (TOD). It is a green project. It even has a lender that provided both debt and equity for the financing.

Most tax credit deals are complicated. Between the allocation, syndication and gap financing, Low Income Housing Tax Credit developments are never easy to finance and build.