Online Alerts

RSS

Sites generate a lot of records, such as leasing records, maintenance records, security deposit records, incident reports, and so on. Because these records take up space in leasing or management offices, most staff members want to get rid of them as soon as possible. But these records can help you if you ever need to defend yourself in a lawsuit. They can also help you to bring a lawsuit against someone—for example, a resident who leaves owing you money.

Citigroup recently agreed to pay $7 billion in a deal with the government for misleading investors about the riskiness of mortgage-backed securities sold in the run up to the 2008 financial crisis. Citigroup, which received $45 billion in taxpayer bailouts during the 2008 financial crisis, is one of the largest banks yet to be penalized by the task force formed by President Obama to investigate the banks' packaging of mortgage securities.

HUD recently issued revised extremely low-income (ELI) limits. The revised limits are effective July 1, 2014. ELI limits are defined as “very low-income families whose incomes do not exceed the higher of the Federal poverty level or 30 percent of Area Median Income (AMI).” Although ELI limits don't affect LIHTC income limit calculations, many tax credit site professionals may also work with various HUD programs that utilize ELI targeting requirements.

A recent Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies Report found that the rental market continues to improve. According to the report, 2013 was the strongest year for multifamily housing starts since 1998. However, the report also noted that affordable housing remains out of reach for millions of households. In 2012, only 3.3 million rental units were available and affordable for the 11.5 million households with extremely low incomes. This represents a gap of about 8.2 million units.

As Internet-based apartment-sharing services such as Airbnb have become more popular, households may seek to rent out their unit to strangers for short stays to supplement their income. Although many owners and managers of conventional sites allow this practice, letting low-income households sublet units at a tax credit site could lead to noncompliance.

The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (DHCA) is asking the Supreme Court to rule that disparate impact claims are not a part of the Fair Housing Act. If the Court grants the writ of certiorari the Texas agency wants, it would be the third Fair Housing Act disparate impact case before the Court since 2012.

At a Marquette University panel discussion, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said suburban politicians aren't applying for federal low-income housing tax credits that would help more poor residents live in their communities. He accused three suburban counties of refusing to seek federal tax credits that would help low-income residents live closer to jobs.         

Last month, Congressmen Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, and Richard Neal, D-Mass., introduced bipartisan legislation (H.R. 4717) that would encourage additional private investment in affordable rental housing. The Tiberi-Neal bill would make permanent the 9 percent Housing Credit for new construction and create a new 4 percent credit rate floor for investment in existing developments.

Moody’s Investors Service recently released a report entitled “2013 Medians Underscore Strength of State HFA Multifamily Programs.” It found that state housing finance agencies’ (HFA) multifamily bond programs continued to perform strongly in 2013. The report looked at 41 multifamily bond programs administered by 20 state HFAs. Here are the four major findings in the report:

To keep affordable rental housing a viable option for low-income families, Freddie Mac has announced a new initiative to increase co-effective financing for tax-exempt multifamily properties. The initiative, which is being labeled as the “Direct Purchase of Tax-Exempt Loans,” will involve Freddie Mac Multifamily purchasing its Targeted Affordable Housing (TAH) lender network multifamily tax-exempt loans, and aggregating and securitizing them into a new series called M-Deals.