Mark Fogarty Author Archives

Can the four percent and nine percent tax credits co-exist peacefully in the same housing project? At the Building 9 project in Sands Point, Seattle, Mercy Housing Northwest decided the two forms of credit could, as long as they were segregated into separate projects in the same development.

State housing finance agencies are still feeling their way into the new Income Averaging (IA) authority, with no clear consensus yet on standard practices for how it will be implemented.

Financing complex community development projects can take a lot of time and a whole lot of funding sources.

A $32 million renovation of an old courthouse in Lexington, KY, using both State and Federal Historic Tax Credits, has converted an 120-year-old structure into a beautiful multi-use boon to downtown redevelopment – and also righted a spectacular architectural fail from 50 years ago when a beautiful interior dome was sealed off and turned into an HVAC closet.

A new and disturbing trend in homelessness was taking over in Jacksonville, FL at the beginning of this decade.

Jeff Huggett enjoyed doing pro bono development work on a project to house the homeless in St. Paul, MN, recently.

It’s clear from adding up the pros and cons of last year’s tax reform that the tax credit industry could have fared a lot worse than it did. It’s also apparent that while the industry did take a few knocks, it wasn’t knocked for a loop.

Affordable housing values are rising, both in the conventional and Section 8 segments of the business, helped by strong economic fundamentals and increasing rental demand.

Q&A

Funds seeking to take advantage of the new Opportunity Zones are actively forming now and may be deploying money for investments in economically distressed areas by the end of the year.

Affordable housing specialist Woda Cooper Companies, Inc. not only has a new name and headquarters, it has a new ownership structure that may become a model for the industry.

Low Income Housing Tax Credit project in Columbus, OH is giving a fresh perspective to the concept of workforce housing.