Glenn Petherick Author Archives

ICAST’s IRA & BIL Instant Benefit Estimate Calculator is now available on NH&RA’s website under the Resources section.

The conversion of a former cider vinegar factory in Kansas into a high-end art gallery and events center, and the renovation of a vacant former hotel in Los Angeles to create affordable apartments and a Mariachi Cultural Center, are among the 13 real estate projects named as winners and finalists for the 2014 J. Timothy Anderson “Timmy” Award for Excellence in Historic Rehabilitation.

Some say to keep it simple when trying something new.

The nation is seeing unprecedented growth in its older population but is not prepared to meet the housing needs of this group, which change with aging, according to a new report by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies and AARP Foundation.

Sometimes a developer’s best new project is replacing an existing property with a larger new development on the same site.

When it comes to turning around a troubled low-income housing tax credit property, Minneapolis-based Dominium is a Mr. Fix-It: it gets to work early and taps multiple funding sources to begin tackling the remedial work even before being formally admitted to the restructured limited partnership as the replacement general partner.

The low-income housing tax credit remains a main driver of transactions for renovating existing multifamily properties and preserving them as affordable rental housing for years to come. Yet there are some new wrinkles that promise additional opportunities for sponsors, including the new Rental Assistance Demonstration program of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

A bipartisan commission has called for expanding the annual amount of federal low-income housing tax credits and deeper targeting of federal rent subsidies, as part of a package of national housing policy recommendations. Unveiled February 25 by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), a Washington, D.C. think tank, the recommendations are contained in a report entitled Housing America’s Future: New Directions for National Policy.

Among affordable housing projects, Linda Vista Senior Apartments in Los Angeles has a unique and haunting backstory.

In many new national multi-investor funds closing later this year, projected after-tax returns to so-called economic investors are likely to dip below the once-sacrosanct 7% level, according to syndicators and other sources in the low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) industry.

For many years, state housing agencies in their qualified allocation plans have strongly promoted the enrichment of new low-income housing tax credit projects with services for residents. This trend has occurred in all types of LIHTC developments – those targeting families, seniors, and persons with special needs.

The multifamily housing sector is going strong in the United States but there’s still an affordability crisis for renters, according to a recent report by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

In policy-speak, a “food desert” is a low-income area, usually urban, where affordable healthy food is hard to obtain, especially for those without a car. Similarly, a data desert is a low-income neighborhood, community, or multifamily property where in-home high-capacity broadband with Internet access is unavailable, unreliable, or expensive.