Enhancing Affordable Housing Deal Terms
How two MIC members are collaborating to improve affordable housing finance
In today’s world, the word collaboration gets tossed around so often it risks losing its meaning. Every project, initiative, and partnership is labeled a “collaboration”—whether or not it truly is.
But we’re also seeing that real collaboration—built on trust, shared values, and genuine commitment—can create an impact far greater than the sum of its parts. When we work side by side with our partners, listening carefully, sharing openly, and pursuing common goals, we unlock new ideas, reach broader audiences, and strengthen the work we all care so deeply about.
The recent partnership between two of our members, Wells Fargo and Nuveen, exemplifies such a collaboration. Late last year, Wells Fargo structured a unique credit facility for Nuveen’s Affordable Housing Strategy that utilizes our Multifamily Impact Framework™ principles in a powerful way—connecting our Framework to measurable impact and ultimately improving affordable housing deal terms. Read on for our exclusive Q&A with Wells Fargo’s Paul Stanley and Nuveen’s Pam West and Amber Knee to find out more about their firms’ collaboration and its implications for affordable housing deals.
As we look ahead to what’s next, I want to express my gratitude to all those who have walked with MIC in true partnership. Your support, insight, and dedication are what move our mission forward.
Bob Simpson
President and CEO
Multifamily Impact Council
Can you tell us about how your firms are partnering to enhance deal terms in the affordable housing space?
In late 2024, Wells Fargo structured the first of its kind, both social- and sustainability-linked subscription credit facility for Nuveen’s U.S. Affordable Housing Strategy. The three impact-oriented key performance indicators (KPIs) within the facility align with the strategy’s investment objectives to preserve affordable housing, offer impactful resident services, and prioritize sustainability and resident health. If all three annual KPIs are achieved, the structure provides up to 7.5 basis points of savings on drawn capital.
This month, we decided to share something very cool that we've been working on here at MIC! The Multifamily Impact Community Network is a platform designed to help MIC members build relationships and collaborate with their peers on specific impact-related issues and opportunities.
We’re starting out with 4 dedicated collaborative spaces:
The Due Diligence Questionnaire Community will provide feedback on guidelines to help investors incorporate the Multifamily Impact Framework™ and streamline the impact sections of their due diligence questionnaires.
The Community Development Finance Institution Community will address CDFI sector-specific challenges, exchange best practices, and use the MIC Framework to support their impact reporting, underwriting and product development strategies.
The Early Childhood Care Community will investigate the Economic Health & Mobility challenges associated with the lack of affordable pre-K care options for children living in multifamily properties.
And our Responsible Exit Community is a forum for property owners who are committed to pursuing responsible exits for their assets or who may be interested in purchasing those assets and maintaining the principles of the Multifamily Impact Framework™. As Antonio Marquez, MIC’s Board Chairman and the Founder of Comunidad Partners, notes, “Responsible exits have been long discussed as a desired practice by LPs, GPs, and other responsible fiduciaries, but until now there has not been a broad, market-based community and exchange to accomplish that type of impact objective.”
MIC plans to create more communities based on the needs of Members. Antonio adds, “MIC's leadership and innovation has been instrumental for us to spearhead this important strategic objective for us at Comunidad. It opens up markets, creates enhanced liquidity through a broader set of participants, and builds a perpetual and viable long-term ecosystem for impact investments in multifamily.”
Have news to share? Send your links to MultifamilyImpactCouncil@thesmartagency.com and we’ll spread the word in this newsletter and on our LinkedIn page.
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