NEW YORK CITY-Centerline Capital Group is growing its affordable housing debt product team with the addition of several new members. The appointments are all part of Centerline’s continuing commitment to the affordable housing industry and spring from changes in how easily debt can be acquired, newly-appointed managing director Phil Melton tells GlobeSt.com.

“One of the biggest things that Centerline saw is that over the last two years there has been a very disjointed market in the affordable housing space,” Melton says. “There was a dearth of capital when Fannie and Freddie both left the market from an equity perspective. Debt was becoming very difficult to get and it was very challenging.”

Melton will lead the debt originations team and will operate out of Centerline’s Dallas office. Also new to the debt product team are senior VPs Karen Dubrosky in Minneapolis and Cindy Hannon in Atlanta.

In his new position, Melton says that he will be overseeing affordable housing debt “across the country as well as leading and spearheading their FHA origin efforts,” a responsibility he held at Grandbridge Real Estate Capital, his former firm, as well.

Perhaps chief among his new duties will be negotiating the changing landscape, as far as who is acquiring debt--something that has been in flux over the past several years. 

“The dynamics in the market changed considerably and banks are becoming very voracious in their appetite for CRA credit for equity perspective as well as for debt,” Melton says of the past several years. “We’re seeing more general investors--meaning insurance companies and other alternative investors that are coming into the market because the yield for tax credits had risen so high and gone from the 4% range up to as much as the 10% to 11% range.”

Asked about Centerline’s commitment to affordable housing, Melton says that it’s a reflection of the current state of the economy and “a disparity between the haves and have nots.” Workforce housing, he adds, is becoming much more scarce. “There has not been a lot of new construction over the last few years,” he says, citing urgent needs in high cost areas such as Southern and Northern California, DC and New York City.