"Far and away it's the largest type of financing like this," Tom Gibson, managing director of Newman, tells GlobeSt.com. "If I had to guess, it's probably four times as big as the second largest, which is something we did last fall. You just don't see, on the multifamily, tax-exempt sector, opportunities like this."

Henry Flores, president of the housing corporation, tells GlobeSt.com that overall, it has issued between $600 million and $700 million. In the latest deal, the purchasers and their bond amounts were Amarillo-based American Housing Foundation, $128.6 million; San Antonio-based American Opportunity for Housing, $64.1 million; and South Texas Affordable Housing Corp., $64.5 million. The South Texas entity is a joint venture between National the Washington, DC-based Development Collaborative and Commonwealth Housing Corp., based in Houston.

The 24 complexes--5,514 units altogether--are preservation rehabilitation properties, Flores says. They are split between the Houston area, the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Austin Corpus Christi and San Antonio. Each portfolio is separate from the others, he says, so that if one fails the others won't be affected.