@Ben Rhodin
Thanks for your feedback.
I’ve spent some time speaking with CHFA and CO Dept of Housing to learn more since my original post. My understanding is that CHFA as a residential lender is simply built to help borrowers own a home. They are not built to accommodate investors, and in fact outright disallow use of the property as a rental. Great to help low income homeowners who do not plan to use their home as a rental revenue generation vehicle.
Conversely, CHFA as a multifamily lender is built to assist those investors who help them fulfill the CHFA mission of providing affordable housing in underserved communities. So, to work with CHFA as a multifamily lender, you’ll end up signing onboard with a lending program that, amongst other criteria, requires 75% of the units in the property to meet their affordable housing criteria based on a % of AMI (area median income). This caps the amount of rental revenue you have access to per property (which you may or may not be comfortable with). So, for formula-driven investors, this may be a wet blanket. However, if being a philanthropic landlord is part of your investment plan, that may offer a whole different level of access I can not speak to.
A final note on CHFA multifamily criteria: the agreement to use the property as an affordable housing vehicle locks the property into a certain term of providing that to the community - typically 30 years. Unlike a conventional mortgage on a residential SFH or small MFH (for example) that involves a 30 year period for repayment terms (and the contract duration can be truncated once paid in full), the CHFA expectation of that property providing affordable housing to the community for a set duration must be met until the end of the term. This agreement would then taken on by any subsequent buyer during that 30 year period. This would likely impact the resale ability of your property if your investment plan includes selling before the term is fulfilled.
