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The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) recently released its proposed “Duty to Serve” rule, which would require the Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to support housing for lower income families in three underserved segments of the housing finance market.
Congress has passed and the president, on Dec. 18, signed the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes (PATH) Act of 2016. The legislation makes permanent the minimum 9 percent low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) applicable percentage or rate for federally unsubsidized developments. This doesn’t apply to the acquisition cost of existing projects or projects that use tax-exempt bond financing. These projects must still use the floating 4 percent tax credit percentage....
HUD recently published a notice designating difficult development areas (DDAs) and qualified census tracts (QCTs) for 2016. A DDA for the LIHTC program is an area designated by HUD with high construction, land, and utility costs relative to its area median gross income (AMGI). DDAs are eligible for tax credits at 130 percent of qualified basis, meaning that a greater percentage of the development costs are funded by the tax credit than in areas not designated a DDA.
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) recently released an analysis of how many people have benefitted from the LIHTC program since it was created in 1986. According to the NAHB, approximately 6.5 million low-income households, or roughly 13.3 million people, have lived in affordable apartments financed by the Housing Credit as of 2013. This estimate is the first to reflect the impacts for the primary beneficiaries of the program, the low-income households wh...
A 2015 study published in Urban Studies by researchers at Texas A&M University, titled “Unpacking the impacts of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program on nearby property values,” questions the perception of affordable, subsidized housing driving down housing prices in surrounding buildings. It looks at changes in housing prices before and after the introduction of LIHTC-subsidized housing. Researchers examined data from Cleveland, Ohio, and ...
The IRS recently released Revenue Procedure 2015-53, which outlines the inflation adjustments for nearly 50 federal tax provisions, including the amount of Low Income Housing Tax Credit (Housing Credit) authority each state will receive. Under the new guidelines, each state will be allocated $2.35 in Housing Credit authority multiplied by its population, or $2.69 million, whichever is greater. This is a slight increase from 2015, when states received $2.30 for every res...
Recently, the J. Ronald Terwilliger Foundation for Housing America’s Families hosted the New Hampshire Housing Summit and invited presidential candidates to address an audience of about 200 housing industry officials. Seven presidential candidates individually discussed how they would address the affordable housing crisis if elected president.
On Oct. 21, HUD announced a proposed rule that would formalize the standards for evaluating harassment claims in housing or housing-related transactions under the Fair Housing Act. According to HUD, sexual harassment is the most common type of harassment complaint it receives. Harassment in housing threatens a resident's sense of safety and privacy in her own home, and there can be little opportunity to escape such harassment unless the individual or family moves.
National accounting firm CohnReznick has spearheaded an effort to bring together independent state housing associations. The Council of Independent State Housing Associations (CISHA) will, for the first time, formally connect representatives of affordable housing associations with one another in order to combine and amplify advocacy efforts for the LIHTC program on the federal level and share best practices with one another.
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