The National Council of State Housing Agencies recently released its 2011 Factbook, a comprehensive survey of Housing Finance Agency (HFA) program activity. The report found that the states allocated $978 million in low-income housing tax credits (LIHTCs)—$749.7 million from their annual state ceiling and $228.3 million to bond-financed properties—in 2011.

Overall, these housing credits will help produce 87,918 affordable rental homes around the country. Other findings include:

• The use of credits with tax-exempt bonds increased nearly 23 percent from $186 million the prior year. However, HFAs allocated fewer credits from the state ceiling in 2011 than the year before when about $917 million was reserved for affordable housing developments;
• Demand for LIHTCs continued to outpace the supply, with developers requesting more than $2 billion in LIHTCs, well more than twice the available authority in 2011;
• State agencies reported that more than half of the units allocated LIHTCs were new construction projects, while 35 percent of the bond-financed units allocated credits were new construction;
• In addition to tax-exempt bond financing, the most prevalent federal subsidies in LIHTC developments in 2011 included project-based Section 8 (18.4 percent of the units) and HOME funding (17.6 percent); and
• Mortgage revenue bond (MRB) issuance increased 13.5 percent during 2011. HFAs issued $8.4 billion in MRBs to raise funds to support first-time homeownership for low- and moderate-income families.