Freddie Mac recently released a pair of white papers as part of Freddie Mac’s Duty to Serve plan, which is aimed at increasing liquidity to historically underserved markets throughout the nation. The first paper addresses multifamily resiliency efforts and identifies the importance of these measures for those disparately impacted by disasters and climate change. The second paper builds on reports from 2018, 2019 and 2020 by revealing new data on energy and water efficiency improvements in workforce housing achieved as part of the company’s Green Advantage® program. This year’s report includes an in-depth analysis of the impact green improvements have made under loans purchased through the Green Up® and Green Up Plus® offerings.
“Green improvements and resiliency efforts are vital to preserving affordable housing, especially in communities and properties serving minority and low-to-moderate income renters,” said Corey Aber, senior director of Multifamily Mission, Policy and Strategy at Freddie Mac, in a statement. “By surveying existing resiliency efforts, we are working to identify resources that the industry and multifamily operators can build upon and leverage to improve natural disaster preparedness and response. Our paper on green improvements, on the other hand, extends past research and enhances the overall transparency of our energy and water savings efforts.”
Resiliency Efforts in Affordable Multifamily Housing
The first paper, “Resiliency Efforts in Affordable Multifamily Housing,” found that comprehensive and proactive planning is especially important for low-income and minority communities, which are geographically more vulnerable and more at risk of experiencing financial and health impacts brought on by natural disasters. At present, there are several public and private market approaches to improving resiliency, including government programs (e.g., Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) incentives) on the public side and insurance premium reductions and specialized financing for resiliency efforts by the private market. These programs and initiatives can provide the foundation for new innovations and collaboration among public and private sector actors to maximize resiliency.
2021 Analysis of Green Improvements in Workforce Housing
The second paper, “2021 Analysis of Green Improvements in Workforce Housing,” reviewed the impact of Green Up and Green Up Plus, which are aimed at improving water and energy efficiency in workforce multifamily properties. Since the program’s inception through the third quarter of 2021, the Freddie Mac Multifamily Green Up and Green Up Plus offerings were utilized on loans totaling $64 billion impacting nearly 630,000 units. The improvements at these properties save on average $191 per unit per year and renters $129 per year based on reported property data.
Freddie Mac continues to be an industry leader in the evaluation of utility data which provides critical transparency to property savings by green improvements. To aid this effort, Freddie Mac has created a resource page for borrowers and other stakeholders, including a Green Advantage Benchmarking Data Collection Guide and how-to videos for data collection and sharing. These efforts contributed to a 25% increase in reported tenant data from 2020, allowing Freddie Mac the ability to perform more tenant-specific energy savings analysis.
Source: Freddie Mac
