This is not to say that the Bridge to Resyndication is ineffectual. On the contrary.

The program provides bridge loans for Low Income Housing Tax Credit developers to use to re-position existing LIHTC properties for recapitalization. Since the program launched in the third quarter of 2015, it has provided more than $200 million in such funding.

The panelist talking up the program was JLL's Tim Leonhard and in case you are wondering why JLL would be highlighting a GSE program and not one of its own, it is because the company helped Freddie Mac structure it.

The program is one of the tools the GSEs has developed help affordable housing developers become more competitive with conventional builders, said Leonhard, who is an International Director with JLL Capital Markets.

Affordable Apartments, Single Family Homes

But as other panelists emphasized, the lack of affordable housing is a problem almost everywhere it seems; certainly it is an issue in the largest markets. It is also a problem in the single-family home asset class.

One of the most anticipated, and packed, presentations was by National Association of Realtors' chief economist Lawrence Yun, who looked at the falling home-ownership rate among young adults. Contrary to popular perception that many Millennials just want to rent without the responsibility of home ownership, there is a sizable number that want to buy but they are constrained by student loan debt as one can see from one of the charts Yun referenced.

Young adults also have become discouraged by the limited supply in the price range and geographic areas they want to say nothing of the rising home prices of the last few years, Yun said.

Good News/Bad News

The good news, as you can see from another chart he presented at the conference, is that the pace of single family homes' price increases will start to slow this year and next. The bad news? That is probably because of the projected rise in mortgage rates, which has been one of the reasons for the rapid increase in the first place.

In his presentation, Trulia's chief economist Ralph McLaughlin said that another reason why there are so few affordable starter homes on the market is that home flippers — yes, they've come back — are scooping up these properties and promptly flipping them into a less affordable category.

At the same time, apartment rental rates have made it very hard for young adults to save for a down payment. Trulia released stats at the same time as the NAREE conference highlighting the gap in rents around the country. While rents in the biggest 25 markets have fallen somewhat last year, many of the top metro areas such as Oakland and Orange County, CA and Phoenix have see affordable listings plummet. In Oakland, for example, the number of affordable listing dropped close to 20% year over year. In Orange County the drop was 11% and in Phoenix they dropped by 9.4%.

Developers Don't Build Just to Be Nice

The answer, obviously is more development. While there is a pipeline stuffed full of market-rate apartments around the nation, builders have to be coaxed into affordable housing projects as they must sacrifice capturing the upside of increasing rents.

Hence JLL's Leonhard focus on Freddie Mac's Bridge to Resyndication program and his larger point, which is that developers need incentives to build. As he said, hedge funds and other investors aren't going to build these projects just because they are nice guys.

If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac weren't in place, he added, “a lot of affordable housing projects wouldn't be coming to market.” The LIHTC program in particular has been very prolific, he said, ushering some 2.7 million units to market since the program was created.

NEW ORLEANS—Last year Freddie Mac rolled out its usual slew of financing programs to encourage the development of affordable housing. One of these programs, the GSE's Bridge to Resyndication, was spotlighted by a panelist at the National Association of Real Estate Editors' annual conference, held last week in New Orleans.

Affordable housing, it should be said here, was one of the many themes running through NAREE's conference, but it definitely was a major one and in that context the discussion of Freddie Mac's Bridge to Resyndication fit in very nicely as it addressed a gap in affordable housing development finance—the scarcity of capital in the market for developers who need to repair or renovate to these buildings.

Which would have been all well and good, but for this one nagging reminder throughout the conference: the dwindling supply of affordable housing in the nation has many, many causes. One program, or even a few, by the GSEs cannot surmount this.

Bridge Loans for LIHTC Developers

This is not to say that the Bridge to Resyndication is ineffectual. On the contrary.

The program provides bridge loans for Low Income Housing Tax Credit developers to use to re-position existing LIHTC properties for recapitalization. Since the program launched in the third quarter of 2015, it has provided more than $200 million in such funding.

The panelist talking up the program was JLL's Tim Leonhard and in case you are wondering why JLL would be highlighting a GSE program and not one of its own, it is because the company helped Freddie Mac structure it.

The program is one of the tools the GSEs has developed help affordable housing developers become more competitive with conventional builders, said Leonhard, who is an International Director with JLL Capital Markets.

Affordable Apartments, Single Family Homes

But as other panelists emphasized, the lack of affordable housing is a problem almost everywhere it seems; certainly it is an issue in the largest markets. It is also a problem in the single-family home asset class.

One of the most anticipated, and packed, presentations was by National Association of Realtors' chief economist Lawrence Yun, who looked at the falling home-ownership rate among young adults. Contrary to popular perception that many Millennials just want to rent without the responsibility of home ownership, there is a sizable number that want to buy but they are constrained by student loan debt as one can see from one of the charts Yun referenced.

Young adults also have become discouraged by the limited supply in the price range and geographic areas they want to say nothing of the rising home prices of the last few years, Yun said.

Good News/Bad News

The good news, as you can see from another chart he presented at the conference, is that the pace of single family homes' price increases will start to slow this year and next. The bad news? That is probably because of the projected rise in mortgage rates, which has been one of the reasons for the rapid increase in the first place.

In his presentation, Trulia's chief economist Ralph McLaughlin said that another reason why there are so few affordable starter homes on the market is that home flippers — yes, they've come back — are scooping up these properties and promptly flipping them into a less affordable category.

At the same time, apartment rental rates have made it very hard for young adults to save for a down payment. Trulia released stats at the same time as the NAREE conference highlighting the gap in rents around the country. While rents in the biggest 25 markets have fallen somewhat last year, many of the top metro areas such as Oakland and Orange County, CA and Phoenix have see affordable listings plummet. In Oakland, for example, the number of affordable listing dropped close to 20% year over year. In Orange County the drop was 11% and in Phoenix they dropped by 9.4%.

Developers Don't Build Just to Be Nice

The answer, obviously is more development. While there is a pipeline stuffed full of market-rate apartments around the nation, builders have to be coaxed into affordable housing projects as they must sacrifice capturing the upside of increasing rents.

Hence JLL's Leonhard focus on Freddie Mac's Bridge to Resyndication program and his larger point, which is that developers need incentives to build. As he said, hedge funds and other investors aren't going to build these projects just because they are nice guys.

If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac weren't in place, he added, “a lot of affordable housing projects wouldn't be coming to market.” The LIHTC program in particular has been very prolific, he said, ushering some 2.7 million units to market since the program was created.