CohnReznick Finds Housing Credit Equity Investment Hit Record High in 2018

This week, CohnReznick’s Tax Credit Investment Services team released its 2019 Housing Tax Credit Investments: Investment and Operational Performance report, with updated data on Housing Credit performance based on its survey of syndicators and direct investors, covering 21,000 Housing Credit properties.

Key findings in the report include:

• Investors made an estimated $16.4 billion in Housing Credit equity investments in 2018, the highest level ever. Of that total, 70 percent was syndicated and 30 percent was directly invested.
• Properties included in the survey had a physical occupancy rate of 97.8 percent in 2018, indicating ongoing low vacancy rates for Housing Credit properties.
• Only 11 percent of properties were on a “watch list” as of the end of 2018, meaning investors and syndicators are watching those properties closely due to a suboptimal risk rating. The number of properties on a watch list declined significantly from previous years.
• The cumulative foreclosure rate of Housing Credit properties remained very low at just 0.65 percent of properties ever having gone into foreclosure in the program’s history.

The report also includes information on trends in fund investment performance, yield variance, per-unit cash flow, debt coverage ratio, and operating expenses.

CohnReznick has also developed interactive platforms to access both the performance and operating expense data in the report. CohnReznick will be hosting a webinar on December 12 to share key findings. Click here to register.