Dealflow | January 7, 2021

Morgan Stanley backs fund to acquire affordable housing in Atlanta

Roodgally Senatus
ImpactAlpha Editor

Roodgally Senatus

ImpactAlpha, January 7 — A quarter of American renters spend more than half of their income on housing. Morgan Stanley is investing $100 million National Equity Fund, an affiliate of the Local Initiatives Support Corp.’s, to finance affordable housing property owners in Atlanta to help low-income families stay in their homes as rents rise near mass-transit routes. 

The National Equity Fund will manage the Greater Atlanta Transit Oriented Affordable Housing Preservation Fund in partnership with the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority to provide five-year bridge financing for owners of affordable property near Atlanta’s metro stations.

NEF’s Scott Zeigler told ImpactAlpha the $100 million fund will back transit-proximate housing “to allow people to be able to walk to those stations and get to their jobs.”

Low vacancy rates and stable cash flows are making affordable and workforce housing attractive to institutional investors. Turner Impact Capital is looking to deploy up to $1.25 billion in affordable ‘workforce’ housing.