A handful of years ago a new term showed up in housing forums and real estate continuing ed classes. NOAH. The acronym stands for naturally occurring affordable housing. The Greater Minnesota Housing Fund explains:
The majority of affordable rental housing in the United States can be found in modest apartment buildings in every city and suburb.
These units are home to every stripe of renter and receive no federal or state subsidy at all. These Class B and Class C rental units comprise the bulk of affordable housing in the country today, but there is nothing to guarantee that they will stay that way.
Nationwide, this affordable rental housing is at risk. In prime real estate markets, this “naturally occurring affordable housing’ (NOAH) is often operated under poor management or in disrepair. Speculators are eager to snap up these developments, upgrade a few amenities, and convert these once-affordable homes to higher-market rents. This loss of affordability threatens the stability of individuals and families who are displaced, and even entire communities.
It was like a frosty burst of January air through an open front door. A much needed break from endless harping on ‘building’ more affordable housing. New construction is the most expensive form of housing and how it is in a community’s best interest pay top dollar for very few units is anxiety rising for any spendthrift.
It is equally refreshing to read that a real estate investor in Charlotte, Mark Ethridge, is building on the concept of NOAH. Here’s how he got started:
Ethridge had watched for years as properties like this were snatched up by big money investors who’d quickly renovate them, jack up the rents and then sell them off for a quick profit. With an estimated 120 people moving to the city every day and an economy on the rise, growth in Charlotte had put these kinds of apartment complexes in the sights of housing investors who saw them not as affordably priced homes for lower income residents but as undervalued assets.
Ethridge has attracted a bunch of like minded people to run up a $58 million fund for the purpose of providing housing at below market rates. The difference here is that his investors will receive annual returns on their investments, just at a reduced rate.
Bowles insists this is not philanthropy, and giving the fund a for-profit structure was a way to bring the discipline needed to ensure it would work for the long run. “We are capitalists,” he says. “We believe in capitalism. But if it’s going to survive, we have to make it work for more people. A lot more people.”
The city is still involved with help on the financing end of things and in return there is a twenty year deed restriction placed on the title of the property to ensure 80-100 percent of the units are rented to residents at the low end of the income scale.
Ethridge calls the effort “social impact capital,” and he says the Housing Impact Fund’s investors recognize that their investment can be both beneficial to society and profitable. “The nice thing about buying existing properties, unlike new construction, they cash flow the day you buy them,” Ethridge says. “So we will pay quarterly returns to our investors and we expect that cash flow to be relatively consistent.”
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