Multifamily Housing
Smart In Your World
ArentFox Schiff has one of the leading national practices in the field of multifamily housing. We represent clients in all phases in the life of a typical multifamily housing project, including acquisition, finance, development, construction, management, disposition, and related dispute-resolution issues. We are counsel to the largest multifamily lender and credit enhancer of tax-exempt multifamily bonds in the country. We represent borrowers and investors in addition to lenders.
Our practice includes projects in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We have extensive experience with construction loans, mezzanine financing, tax-exempt financing, low-income housing tax credits, seniors housing, securitized financings, and the use of HUD programs. Work in the multi-family field has necessarily entailed representation of clients in complex work-out scenarios and financial restructuring, work with municipal financial structures, and also related tax and regulatory work.
Affordable housing is a core area of practice for the Public Finance Group. Our work has recently included lobbying Congress to protect the interests of the not-for-profit community in retaining their interests in affordable housing projects.
Recent Transactions
- Helped Fannie Mae create and expand its secondary market bond credit enhancement product. Transactions have involved major developers, including The Related Companies, Gotham Organization, Avalon Bay, Lalezarian Properties, Taconic Investment Properties, and Rose Associates, and large multifamily 80/20 rental properties (80% market rate and 20% affordable units).
- Represented Washington Housing Conservancy in the acquisition and financing of a vital, precedent-setting affordable housing project in Maryland. The Washington Housing Conservancy and National Housing Trust Communities purchased a 245-unit apartment complex, an acquisition furthering both organizations’ missions to preserve or create affordable homes, prevent displacement, advance racial and housing equity, and open greater opportunities for individuals, families, and communities.
- Created a private sector mechanism for preserving workforce housing, including forming and obtaining IRS recognition for non-profit client Washington Housing Conservancy. The first project preserves 825 housing units and provides social services for the tenants. It is funded with loans and grants from a global corporation’s housing equity fund, loans from a private-sector impact fund, and a modest amount of philanthropic equity. This mechanism has the potential to be replicated nationally.
- Represented a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) nationally in credit-enhancing affordable multifamily housing bond transactions. Helped the client structure its first-ever risk-sharing transaction involving the client, its lender/servicer, and a housing finance agency. The GSE provides credit enhancement for a bond-financed sustainable development loan to a public-private JV borrower. Loan proceeds are used to pay a portion of the cost of acquiring, rehabilitating, and equipping over 1,700 apartments in 18 tenant-occupied public housing buildings in New York City. The transformation of these units is featured in this CBS News segment.
- Assisted a GSE with the development of sponsor-initiated affordability restrictions for conventional multifamily housing properties to encourage the increased supply of workforce housing, help borrowers garner ESG designation, and achieve favorable financing terms.