Underwriting Best Practices

AHIC's best practices for underwriting cover four key topic areas underwriting: deals, general partners and guarantors, syndicators and acquisitions.

Updated and Expanded Underwriting Guidelines (2018)
Outline for an underwriting process and for investment documents for proprietary, multi-investor, and direct investments in low-income housing tax credits (LIHTC). Examines how to analyze the financial strength and expertise of the development team; the key points to understand the sources and uses in the development budget; critical facets of underwriting the deal; best practices in due diligence; and tools for reviewing the capacity of syndicators.
Permanent Supportive Housing Underwriting Guidance. Provides investors with a clear framework for understanding how PSH differs from traditional LIHTC investments and detailed due diligence checklists covering sponsor, property manager, and service provider evaluation. Also includes guidance on underwriting rental subsidies, service funding, reserves, and vacancy assumptions. Unit-level and project-level underwriting recommendations. Appendices with sample regulatory relief language, design considerations, and a site-visit checklist.
DEI Analysis of AHIC’s Underwriting Guidelines: Reviews AHIC’s Underwriting Guidelines with a lens of fairness and justice to identify ways that the Guidelines could create barriers and recommend changes or additions to open pathways to under-represented developers.

AHIC Operating Subsidy Review Guidelines: Used with the Guarantor Analysis Grid to provide a framework for AHIC investors to consider the positive and negative impacts of federal, state and local subsidies on a transaction.
AHIC Operating Subsidy Underwriting Analysis Grid (Fillable template for syndicator partners)
Sample Public Operating Subsidy Loss Regulatory Relief Language: Sample language to discuss preserving the financial feasibility of a housing credit development in the event of an unexpected loss of public operating subsidies. Covers QAPs and LURAs.

AHIC Guarantor Analysis: Outlines materials to review and areas of analysis to consider when evaluating the adequacy of a guarantor—an individual, a corporate entity (for-profit or non-profit) or a special purpose entity.
AHIC Real Estate Owned (REO) Schedule: Fillable template to show a summary of all real estate (not just LIHTC real estate) for which a General Partner/Developer/Guarantor’s has a controlling interest, contingent liabilities or other risk of significant economic loss through loss of investment assets currently carried on its balance sheet, tax liability, etc.
AHIC Disclosure Form: Fillable template to collect details on ownership, experience and financials of the project team (GP-Managing Member/Guarantor/Developer) to assess risk and promote informed investment decisions.

Upper Tier Reserve Guidelines: Provides recommendations for reserves for project needs, asset management fees and fund-level expenses.
AHIC Syndicator Review Guidelines: Resource to assess a business relationship with a new or ongoing syndicator and its ability to provide: (1) an adequate/consistent supply of LIHTC investments; (2) a diverse selection of investor opportunities; (3) sound underwriting of investments; and (4) solid asset management for those investments over the 15-year compliance period.
- AHIC Syndicator Review - Attachment A (Staffing Template)
- AHIC Syndicator Review - Attachment B (Business Concentration Template)
- AHIC Syndicator Review - Attachment C (Sustainability Template)
- AHIC Syndicator Review - Attachment D (Fund Performance Template)

Acquisitions Standards (Executive Summary and Data Input Sheet to review acquisitions)