FINANCE Lender Roundtable From post-pandemic deal opportunities to the impact of interest rate volatility to emerging competitive threats, five seasoned affordable housing finance professionals share their outlook for the Western region. Matt Valley T he U.S. has a shortage of 6.8 million rental homes that are affordable and available to extremely low-income renters whose household incomes are at or below the poverty guideline, or 30 percent of the area median in-come (AMI). That sobering data point comes from a newly released report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) titled, “The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes.” In fact, only 37 affordable and available rental homes exist for every 100 extremely low-income renter households, states the NLIHC. Extreme-ly low-income renters face a shortage in every state and major metropolitan area. In Nevada, for example the supply of affordable and avail-able rental homes is only 20 for every 100 ex-tremely low-income renter households. More broadly speaking, nearly 10.8 million of the nation’s 44 million renter households have extremely low incomes. Against that backdrop, Western Affordable Housing Business reached out to some of the most active players across the region to get their take on the business climate for 2021, the effects of the pandemic, and how the industry is currently helping fill the supply-demand gap. Roundtable participants included Frank Bra-vo, managing director at ATAX, a Greystone affiliate; David Lott, vice president with JLL’s capital markets team specializing in afford-able housing; Phil Melton, national director of affordable housing and FHA lending for Bell-wether Enterprise Real Estate Capital LLC; David Musial, senior vice president and director of Capital One Community Finance; and Paul Weissman, senior managing director and head of affordable housing production for Lument. Participants were e-mailed a series of ques -tions and asked to respond with their answers in writing. What follows are their edited com-ments. Western Affordable Housing Business: What is your firm’s lending specialty within the mul -tifamily affordable housing space across the Western states? Does your firm have a sweet spot in terms of deal size? David Musial: Capital One has a team of ex-perts that specialize in the nuance and complex-ity of affordable housing and offer a full suite of lending products and services tailored to our partners’ needs, from construction to perma-nent financing options. Within that framework, our Community Finance team provides con-struction financing and invests in low-income housing tax credits (LIHTCs), while our com-mercial real estate team provides clients with both debt and access to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA loans. Frank Bravo: ATAX, a Greystone affiliate, was formed in 1998 for the primary purpose of orig-inating, acquiring and holding a portfolio of mortgage revenue bonds that have been issued to provide construction and/or permanent fi -nancing for affordable FRANK BRAVO multifamily and student Managing Director, housing nationwide. ATAX ATAX’s recent commit-ments have ranged from $4 million to $76 mil-lion. Our target size is a minimum of $8 million. David Lott: JLL prides itself on being able to tackle complex affordable transactions of any size, including acquisitions, refinancings, reno -vations, new constructions to recapitalizations. As Freddie Mac’s No. 1 affordable lender and Fannie Mae’s No. 2 affordable lender in 2020, JLL executes transactions ranging from $3 mil -lion to $250 million. Recently, JLL has been assisting clients with analyzing their LIHTC properties nearing year 15. As a full-service affordable team, JLL is able to agnostically show clients options, ranging from refinancing to re-syndication to selling their LIHTC properties. Phil Melton: Bellwether Enterprise provides a multitude of financing options through the agencies as well as FHA, USDA Rural Development and private placement. We specialize in working with nonprofit and gov -ernmental entities, which ties back closely to our majority-owned partner, Enterprise Com-munity Partners. We provide financing that ranges from $500,000 to $100 million, with our sweet spot being $15 million to $30 million on the debt side. Paul Weissman: Lument’s dedicated affordable housing team has the programs, partnerships and intellectual capital needed to assist borrow-ers in the Western states with both speed and transparency. We provide financing to meet all types of affordable housing needs, including forward commitments, preservation loans, and both taxable and tax-exempt executions. Our full range of client-focused services in-cludes affordable Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA transactions in addition to con-ventional agency debt, small-balance loans, and proprietary bridge loans. Our team has particular expertise in transactions financed www.REBusinessOnline.com 22 | Western Affordable Housing Business | May/June 2021