When Kristen Senff started her career at LaSalle Bank in Chicago, she fell in love with real estate.
“The very first deal I underwrote was a massive high-rise in downtown Chicago,” she says.
A construction lender for commercial real estate until the Great Recession, she became a workout lender for Bank of America, which had acquired LaSalle.
“I learned more in that time watching deals go sideways,” she says. That’s where she got her introduction to the low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) industry when she had a series of permanent loans cross her desk. She spent time educating herself about the LIHTC program to unwind those deals in 2010 and decided that the industry would be a good fit for her, combining that love of real estate with a more mission-based purpose.
Living in Chicago at the time, she joined syndicator National Equity Fund as an investor relations manager in late 2010 and then transitioned to the development side of the business as an originations officer in 2011. In 2014, she became an originator, overseeing NEF’s developer relationships throughout the Midwest, and today she is vice president of originations, overseeing new LIHTC development projects in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee.
“My responsibility is knowing the states, knowing the partners, and originating new deals,” she says.
A self-proclaimed people person, Senff enjoys putting her relationship skills to work—from working with developer clients on the ground, cheerleading her teammates, and educating people in her Columbus, Ohio, community about affordable housing.
While the 38-year-old Senff says she is just one small piece of the affordable housing puzzle, she has had a larger impact. At NEF, she has closed about 75 projects and has 15 secured in the pipeline closing in the next several months. That equates to about $575 million closed and $150 million secured in the pipeline.
“I play a very small part in the story of helping create the basic foundation of housing for people,” she says. “I really do believe housing is a cornerstone issue. If you don’t have safe, stable, affordable housing, you can’t move on from there and meet your goal potential.”
Senff and her husband have three boys between the ages of 8 and 3. She also is active in her church.
