LIHTC Pipeline · State Module IA

Iowa Low-Income Housing Tax Credits

Every Iowa LIHTC project HUD has recorded since 1987, joined with Iowa Finance Authority award and application data for the 2022–2026 competitive rounds. Money and applicant figures come only from IFA disclosures — nothing is estimated.

The 9% credit is a competitive bet

Applications versus awards in each IFA 9% round. Roughly one in three applications wins in a normal year — 2026 was unusually favorable because fewer developers applied for a similar pool of credits.

Applications Awards
View as table

Where you win: the set-aside pools

Win rate by set-aside requested, across all 114 applications 2022–2026. Every Innovation application ever filed has won; the general pool runs one-in-three. Hover a bar for the counts.

Scores don’t decide — caps and credit math do

Every scored application 2023–2026 (~55-point QAP; one 18-point outlier omitted for scale). Winners and losers occupy the same scores — city and developer caps plus end-of-waterfall credit math decide the margin. Hover any dot for the project and, where IFA stated one, the reason it lost.

Won Lost

What a unit of affordable housing costs in credits

Annual federal credit per unit for every awarded 9% project, 2022–2026. Each dot is one project; the dark tick is the year’s median. The climb from ~$24k to ~$34k per unit in four years is construction-cost inflation showing up directly in credit pricing. Hover any dot for the project.

Thirty-seven years of placements

Low-income housing units placed in service in Iowa per year, colored by credit type on HUD’s record. Credit-type coding is sparse before 1995 (shown as “not recorded”), and 2024 placements haven’t reached the HUD file yet.

9% competitive 4% / bond Not recorded

Who wins the credits

Developers ranked by credits won across the tracked 2022–2026 rounds.

Where the projects are

Cities with the most LIHTC projects on the full 1987–2024 HUD record.

Where the basis boost is

Every project over the 85 census tracts that carry a 2026 Qualified Census Tract 30% basis boost (shaded). Only 28.6% of Iowa’s projects sit in a current QCT, and they cluster in the metros. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan; hover a dot for the project or a shaded tract for its ID and how many LIHTC projects already sit in it.

9% competitive 4% / bond Other / not recorded 2026 QCT

Shaded tracts: HUD 2026 QCT list on 2020 census-tract geometry (Census TIGER). Vintage note: HUD flags each project’s QCT status against the map in force when it was placed (1990/2000/2010 tract vintages); this shows the current 2026 QCTs — the map a new deal is sited against.