Creation of the Consortia

The consortia were created over the past ten to 15 years in order to provide permanent mortgages for affordable multifamily housing. Most consortia were specifically created to finance federal low income housing tax credit projects, which were initially perceived as very risky. The shared risk of the consortia product gave banks comfort to participate in financing these loans.

Each consortium developed a permanent loan product, and terms varied by state depending on local needs and practices. In a few cases, consortia also offered some additional services at the outset such as construction financing and predevelopment loans.

Today, the ARCH group includes 12 consortia, with several other similar consortia not represented in this informal group (eg. Community Preservation Corporation in New York). In total, 434 separate institutions are represented in the 12 ARCH members, with more than 50 financial institutions participating in more than one consortium, including the following:

• AmSouth – AMLC, FCP, NLP
• Bank of America – CCRC, CIC, CICNC, FCP, ICRC, NOAH, WCRA
• SouthTrust – AMLC, FCP, GAHC, NLP
• SunTrust – AMLC, FCP, GAHC, NLP
• Wachovia – CICNC, FCP
• Washington Mutual – CCRC, ICRC, FCP, NOAH, UCRC, WCRA
• Wells Fargo – CCRC, ICRC, NOAH, UCRC, WCRA