LIHTC Demystified: Navigating to Success

For nearly forty years, LIHTC (pronounced “lie-teck”) has been the dominant federal capital resource for creating affordable multifamily housing in the United States today — but how does it work at its core? And what do savvy participants need to know before pursuing it?

In this two-hour interactive workshop, affordable housing expert David Smith, who’s worked with LIHTC since its inception, will present a structural overview of LIHTC and its two versions, the importance and complexities of relying on it in your capital stack, and how each state’s Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP) implicitly tells you how to win.

Today, LIHTC dominates affordable multifamily production and preservation[1], with over $10.5 billion allocated annually, and an additional $19 billion potentially available via private activity bonds (PABs); it’s usually the first and last topic in financing these transactions. But each state operates independently in deciding to whom to award LIHTC or PABs, and the QAP is the key. Scoring high on it, however, usually adds cost to the development and can put feasibility in peril. How do you balance the two?