NEW YORK CITY — The University of Florida has won the inaugural Multifamily Investment Case Competition, a contest organized by Berkadia and the New York University Stern School of Business (NYU | Stern) for the team’s presentation, which proposed a hybrid debt and equity fund that leveraged the benefits of Florida’s Live Local Act (102).
The Florida team recommended a $300 million hybrid debt and equity fund, dubbed The Gator Capital Workforce Housing Hybrid Fund. Roughly 70 to 80 percent of the fund would go towards the debt strategy, while 20 to 30 percent of the fund would be put towards the equity strategy.
The debt would fund new affordable housing development. Meanwhile, the equity dollars would be put towardacquiring existing, stabilized properties. The fund would also subsidize the affordable and eco-friendly components of the properties using SB102 real state tax abatements, which would minimize long-termoperating expenses.
The debt strategy aimed to contribute 275 to 325 units per location at a cost of around $40 million to $50 million. The equity strategy aimed to create and maintain 225 to 275 units per location at a cost of approximately $15 million to $20 million in equity.
The Live Local Act went into effect in July 2023. The act provides tax abatements for proposed rental developments that set aside at least 40 percent of its total units as affordable housing. The affordable housing units must be leased at a rate at or below 120 percent of the area median income for a period of at least 30 years.
The proposed fund would launch in the most rent-burdened counties in Florida, including Palm Beach, Broward, Orange, Miami-Dade and Hillsborough. If the concept proved to be a success in these regions, the strategy would expand outwards to the entire state. From there, the Fund could expand further into municipalities in other states.
The competition, which was held from Nov. 14 to 16 at NYU | Stern, challenged teams of graduate students from universities across the nation to develop and pitch an investment strategy for a workforce housing fund tailored to the needs of middle-income renters. The competition will reoccur annually, but no plans for 2025 have released.
The teams were given an overview of modern challenges regarding housing affordability. The students also viewed examples of solutions various states and municipalities have deployed to address the issue. Developers need to build an estimated 4.3 million affordable housing rental units in the United States by 2035, according to the National Apartment Association.
Dori Nolan, senior vice president of institutional solutions at Berkadia, shared her thoughts on how the University of Florida team claimed the No. 1 spot.
“The University of Florida team proposed a scalable financial plan starting with a fund in a market that was familiar to them — Florida,” she explained. “The fund was designed as a proof-of-concept, with the intent to follow on with other regional funds after having proven the success of the concept in their own state.”
Additional participants in the competition included teams from Columbia Business School; UCLA Anderson School of Management; the University of Wisconsin; The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; and NYU | Stern.
The panel of judges consisted of Gregory Bates, president and CEO of GID; Kalin Bracken, head of real estate for the World Economic Forum; Rachel Diller, senior managing director and chief investment officer at Bridge Workforce and Affordable Housing; Sharon Wilson Géno, president of the National Multifamily Housing Council; Mary Ann King, co-head of institutional solutions at Berkadia; Dillon Lorda, director and portfolio manager at AEW Private Equity Group; and Stella Pappas, senior managing director and head of investor relations at TruAmerica Multifamily.
— Channing Hamilton