Multifamily Housing

This fact sheet discusses the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) multifamily housing stock that is eligible for incentives under either title II of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1987 or title VI of the National Housing Affordability Act of 1990. These incentives are offered to preserve this housing for lower-income households. This fact sheet details the characteristics of these projects, such as their number and locations, and also identifies those projects whose owners have filed for incentives. GAO also discusses the cost of the incentives provided to project owners as of September 30, 1993, the end of the most recent fiscal year for which data are available.

GAO found that: (1) by 2021, 3,555 project owners will be eligible to participate in the preservation incentive program; (2) 95 percent of all low-income units will be eligible for prepayment by fiscal year 1997; (3) although eligible projects are distributed throughout every state, 10 states have over 53 percent of the eligible housing units, California has 11 percent of the nationwide total, and 59 cities contain about 35 percent of the units eligible for preservation; (4) the three cities with the largest percentage of eligible housing units are Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas; (5) of the 781 project owners who have already filed notices with HUD to participate in the preservation program, 132 have been approved and most indicated that they would retain their projects and extend the use restrictions preserving the projects for lower-income households or sell their projects to a qualified purchaser; (6) HUD required an average of 17 months to process and approve project owners' participation requests; (7) HUD reserved about $432 million for preserving the 132 approved projects; (8) between 1991 and 1993, Congress appropriated approximately $1.1 billion for housing preservation; and (9) by the end of 1993, over $540 million in appropriations remained unreserved.