Arixa Capital affiliate Arixa Holdings and Belay Investment Group have formed a joint venture to invest in multifamily development. The joint venture will provide $1 million to $10 million in  bridge, renovation and construction loans for multifamily and homebuilding developments, targeting local real estate investors and developers.

For Arixa, this joint venture will strengthen the company's Western US platform. Specifically, the two firms are focused on addressing the housing affordability gap in Los Angeles and other major West Coast markets. For that reason, the joint venture will mandate that borrowers meet attainability guidelines for housing. Those guidelines are determined by median home prices and rental rates. Ultimately, the goal of the joint venture it is to increase the supply of for-sale single-family and apartment units.

Targeted capital focused on combatting the affordable housing crisis is crucial to the industry. A recent report sponsored by Capital One from the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California Berkeley said that the fragmented nature of affordable housing financing has pushed many developers—and therefore affordable projects—out of the market. Most affordable housing projects require a multitude of complex financing to make a project pencil. The report called for more streamlined capital and debt alternatives that would de-complicate the industry. Overall, the problem is getting worse, but programmatic joint ventures, like this one, are a move in the right direction.