Recent federal housing announcements

- Further to yesterday's 202/811 mixed-finance final rule: we're told that the changes from the interim rule are a pretty big deal for developers. Full coverage to follow in the next AHF magazine. In the meantime: back in winter '03/'04 when the preceding interim rule was announced, we heard that "at least 15 mixed-finance projects with existing allocations had been waiting for this regulatory guidance to start development." But according to the summaries of comments in the new final rule announcements, even the interim rule created too much ambiguity -- and, from some developers' point of view, too much restriction -- when it came to expanding the permissible roles of for-profit businesses working in cooperation with nonprofits on these types of developments. The preamble in yesterday's 13-page announcement has gone into great detail on the types of possible non-profit/for-profit relationships, not only by describing the regulatory changes summarized here yesterday, but by offering guidance in the form of responses to comments. Among other guidance, it says limited liability companies may not be ownership entities under the new regulation.

- Also for 202/811 developers: the requisition form for disbursement of capital advance/loan funds is up for comment at HUD until Nov. 14.

- Ginnie Mae is proposing a new kind of security backed by excess yield funds from previous securities. Comments are again due Nov. 14.

- The New Markets Tax Credit program has published the Federal Register notice it promised last Friday offering to extend its Sep. 21 application deadline on a case-by-case basis for applicants affected by disaster. The press releases were oddly worded as to which disaster dates were included, but the Federal Register announcement clearly refers to disaster declarations "since July 15, 2005."