General News

The Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) has scheduled an application webcast for the calendar year 2010 round of the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Program. The application webcast will be broadcast on Tuesday, May 4 at 3:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time.

Governor Bob McDonnell this week announced a major initiative by his Administration aimed at expanding affordable housing in Virginia, including the establishment of the state’s first executive housing policy framework to help guide the development of a housing policy.

A renter household needs an annual income of $38,360 in order to afford a two-bedroom rental unit at the Fair Market Rent, according to a recent study released by the National Low-Income Housing Coalition.

National Council of Affordable Housing Market Analysts (NCAHMA) is please to offer FIVE digital audio recordings of select panel sessions held during its 2010 Spring Underwriting Forum, April 7-8 in New Orleans.

Enterprise has published a new report entitled “Incremental Cost, Measurable Savings: Enterprise Green Communities Criteria.” The report explores the measurable costs savings of applying comprehensive green methods and materials to affordable housing developments.

HUD USER recently updated the State of the Cities Data System to include labor statistics for February 2010, using Local Area Unemployment Statistics data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Arkansas Development Finance Authority (ADFA) recently issued a memo to potential 2010 applicants for Section 1602 Exchange funds that describes several new requirements for all applicants. The memo also describes the process by which ADFA will identify eligible applications for Exchange funds after the applications are received.

The Tennessee Housing Development Authority (THDCA) has established a Special Tax Credit Committee under the THDA Board to examine the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program and make recommendations to the Board regarding the program and subsequent year qualified allocation plans (QAP).

On March 16 HUD issued a new mortgagee letter that effectively raises the maximum FHA mortgage amount for multifamily FHA-insured loans by excluding land value from the calculation of the statutory mortgage limits. It is expected that this new determination by the FHA will expand the use of FHA insurance for multifamily housing in major high-cost cities such as New York City, San Francisco, Boston, and Philadelphia. NH&RA’s General Counsel Bingham McCutchen provided the following summary:

The Louisiana Housing Finance Authority (LHFA) has released a description of the procedures used for processing and ranking the requests for additional GO Zone tax credits, and provided examples of the procedures.

The Urban Land Institute has published a new report entitled Housing in America: The Next Decade. The first part of this report reviews the current state of the market.

The Ohio Housing Finance Agency’s Office of Program Compliance has issued a compliance update memo addressing several topics. The memo highlights changes to OHFA policies and procedures based on internal review or guidance from program administrators such as the IRS, including: