From the Ohio Housing Finance Agency’s Fall Newsletter:
In the fall of 2014, the OHFA Board approved the creation of the Multifamily Lending Program (MLP), which was designed to provide permanent financing for affordable rental housing built or owned by OHFA’s trusted development partners and funding recipients. The program is compatible with developments that receive new 4% or 9% LIHTC allocations, developments that previously received LIHTC allocations and are between years 10-20 of their compliance period and developments without housing credits that still maintain similar affordability requirements.The program has received initial funding of $20 million per year for fiscal years 2015-2017.
Since opening the application window in December 2014, six developments were successfully brought through the OHFA Board approval process, comprising a total investment of $6.6 million and impacting the development of 451 units. Four of the loans were paired with developments receiving new allocations of housing credits, one was for a development originally funded with housing credits in 2002 and is restructuring its debt, and the last loan is for an assisted living facility that is ineligible for housing credits because of licensure requirements but will still serve Medicaid-eligible residents.
To assist in the management of the origination, servicing and asset management of this and other Agency loan portfolios, OHFA has purchased loan management software called The Mortgage Office, which will provide a central database for all information regarding the loans, and automate such functions as the retrieval and tracking of monthly payments through Automated Clearing House and the emailing of statements and notices. As of this writing, the first MLP loan closing is in process and expected to be completed by the end of the year.
