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NLIHC Tenant Protections Network: National Housing Preservation Database Overview

October 23, 2025

Raquel Harati, MPH�Research Analyst

National Low Income Housing Coalition

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  • What is federally assisted rental housing and affordable housing preservation?
  • What is the National Housing Preservation Database?
  • How does this relate to tenant protections?
  • Discussion / Q&A

Today’s Agenda

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What is Federally Assisted Rental Housing?

  • Rental property that receives a subsidy, tax incentive, low-interest loan, or mortgage insurance to a property owner in exchange for reducing the cost of housing for low-income families.
  • Generally multifamily properties.

Federally assisted rental property

Section 8

Section 202

Section 236

LIHTC

HOME

Public housing

HUD insured mortgages

Section 538

Section 515

Section 514

Project-based vouchers

Mod Rehab

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What is Preservation?

Preservation is the act of investing in affordable homes to promote….

Long term affordability

Maintenance

Financial Viability

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Preservation Risks

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Affordability Restrictions Are Set to Expire for 467,310 Federally Assisted Rental Homes in the Next Five Years

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About the NHPD

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About the National Housing Preservation Database (NHPD)

  • Created in 2012 by PAHRC and NLIHC
  • Only nationwide deduplicated database of federally assisted rental properties
    • 80k properties with active affordability restrictions
    • 33k properties with inactive affordability restrictions
  • Used by over 16,000 people to understand their affordable housing stock
  • Available at www.preservationdatabase.org

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Examples of Past NHPD Impacts

Justification to appropriate $100M to build and preserve affordable homes in Utah and Missouri

Cited when enacting policies to support preservation in Philadelphia, PA

Inform the lending strategy of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Competitively rank federal grants that expand transit access near affordable homes

Complete housing needs assessments and preservation plans in numerous cities, states, and counties

Kept people stably housed during the eviction moratorium

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Programs Included

Included Programs

    • Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance
    • Section 811
    • Section 202
    • Section 202 Direct Loans
    • State HFA funded section 236
    • Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC)
    • HOME
    • Public Housing
    • HUD Insured Mortgages (affordable only)
    • USDA Section 538
    • USDA Section 515
    • USDA Section 514
    • Project Based Vouchers
    • Mod Rehab
    • National Housing Trust Fund
    • State-funded programs for CT, DE, MA, MI, FL, OR, HI, KY, VT, WA

Excluded Programs

    • State and locally funded programs
    • McKinney Vento Permanent Housing
    • Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA)
    • Tax-Exempt Multifamily Housing Bonds
    • Section 516 Farm Labor Housing
    • Community Development Block Grants (CDBG)
    • Indian Housing Block Grant

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Data Included

Property Level

    • Property name
    • Property street address
    • Geographic characteristics
    • Total units
    • Property owner and type
    • Active/inactive subsidies
    • Subsidy end date(s)
    • Subsidy start date
    • Construction date
    • REAC/NSPIRE score/date
    • Target tenant type
    • Occupancy rate
    • Bedrooms per unit (0-1, 2, 3+)

Subsidy Level

    • Subsidy ID
    • Subsidy name
    • Manager name and type
    • Owner name and type
    • Start date
    • Expiration date
    • Unpaid principal balance
    • Rent to FMR ratio
    • Subsidy status
    • Assisted units

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Data Refresh Schedule

January

    • Full refresh

April

    • Section 8 refresh

August

    • Full refresh
    • Preservation profiles

October

    • Section 8 refresh

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NHPD Research Limitations

Some data are not available

State-funded subsidies

State-imposed extended LIHTC affordability restrictions

Historic data for some programs are limited

Data lags

Inconsistent across programs

Longest data lags for LIHTC properties

Overtime research limitations

Data quality and processing has changed overtime

Past NHPD iterations must be standardized

Data quality varies by program

Properties missing property address are hidden

Local data may be more comprehensive

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How can this data be used for Tenants?

Identify a property of interest

Through assessing the funding source(s) for a property you can identify applicable tenant legal protections

Identify Expiring Properties in Bulk

From identifying expiring properties, you can give tenants a heads up about potentially expiring affordability restrictions to their rents

Starting point for a local affordable housing database, a landlord registry or rent registry

The NHPD has the potential to be combined with many state and local data sources to give a clearer picture of affordable housing in an area

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NHPD Resources

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NHPD’s Resources

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Database

Filtered Grid

Complete Database

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Preservation Dashboard

Access here.

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Mapping Tool

Access here

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Discussion / Q&A

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Locating a Specific Rental Property

Tips:

    • Search as many fields as possible
      • Property name
      • Address
      • Street name
    • Use keywords (Ex: “Pines” instead of “The Pines”)
    • Use the mapping tool to view property footprint
    • Google the property if it isn’t in the NHPD

Locating Properties May be More Difficult If It…

    • Is newly built
    • Does not receive federally funded project-based rental assistance

This helped keep millions of families stably housed during the pandemic

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Preservation Toolkit

This report helps you understand the number of homes facing preservation risks at any level of geography.

Homes funded by program

Homes facing exit risk

Homes facing depreciation risk

Homes with long-term affordability restrictions

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Create Local Preservation Database

  1. Download complete database from NHPD
  2. Create unique identifier
  3. Add new columns for locally funded subsidies
  4. Standardize matching fields in state subsidy dataset
  5. Match NHPD to local subsidy data

�…or send your state subsidies to us to add to the NHPD!

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Identify At-Risk Properties

  1. Filter for properties with a Property Status equal to active or inconclusive.
  2. Set the Latest End Date to five years from today and set the filter to “is less than.” This will show you properties with subsidies set to expire in the next five years.
  3. Filter by City, State, Zip Code, or Congressional District to focus on the area you care about.
  4. (Optional) Filter the list based on your own local risk criteria or preservation priorities.

Numerous localities use the NHPD to inform their preservation plans, including:

Montgomery County, MDAnderson, INNorfolk, VA

Falmouth, ME

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Documentation

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The NHPD is protected by copyright. © 2020 Public and Affordable Housing Research Corporation (PAHRC) and the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC)

The NHPD is protected by copyright. © 2020 Public and Affordable Housing Research Corporation (PAHRC) and the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC).

www.preservationdatabase.org

www.pahrc.org

www.nlihc.org

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Supplemental Slides

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NHPD Use Cases

Quantify supply of affordable rental housing

Identify at-risk properties to inform preservation strategies

Advocate for the preservation of at-risk properties

Locate affordable housing options for Housing Choice Voucher holders

Target properties for preservation

Identify appliable affordable housing regulations

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Data Availability by Program

Subsidy

Update Frequency

Type of Update

Completeness (Address)

Completeness (End Date)

Inactive Subsidies Available

LIHTC

Annually*�Data lags by 3 years

Historical

95%

93%

Yes

Section 8 PBRA

Monthly

Point in time

99%

100%

Yes

Public Housing

Annually

Point in time

95%

100%

No

Section 202 Direct Loans

Semi-annually

Point in time

99%

100%

No

HOME Assistance

On Request

Historical

93%

100%

Yes

HUD Insured Mortgages

Monthly

Historical

75%

100%

Yes

Section 515

Monthly & semi-annually

Point in time

96%

98%

No

Section 538

Monthly

Point in time

89%

100%

No

Mod Rehab

On Request

Point in time

70%

0%

No

PBV

On Request

Point in time

77%

0%

No

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Possible Preservation Risk Criteria

Condition of Property

    • Building age
    • REAC/NSPIRE score (below 60)
    • Occupancy rate (low occupancy may indicate lower property condition)
    • Recent capital improvements (no recent capital improvements may indicate lower property condition, particularly for older properties)

Risk of Converting to Market Rate

    • Owner type (for-profit)
    • Property has non-renewable subsidies
    • Upcoming expiration of affordability restrictions
    • Market conditions (high rent growth area)
    • Property size (smaller properties may be more likely to convert to market rate)

Meets Local Priority

    • Target tenant type (elderly, people with disabilities, or family)
    • Deeply affordable properties (properties assisted by public housing, Section 8 Project Based Rental Assistance, or Project based Vouchers)
    • Property located in low poverty census tract

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Subsidy Status

Active

End date is in the future

Inconclusive

End date is missing

Section 8: End date has passed by less than one year�

LIHTC: 30 year use period has ended

Inactive

Subsidy missing from subsequent data refreshes. ��End date is in the past.

Section 8: End date has passed by more than one year or is listed as terminated

HUD Insured Mortgages: Mortgage listed as terminated��LIHTC: Subsidy is listed as non-programmatic

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The Average Federally Assisted Home Has Been Affordable for 36 Years

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Key Changes in NHPD Overtime

Refresh

Key Changes

June 2022

LIHTC: State-imposed LIHTC end dates were updated for Connecticut, Hawaii, Montana, Oregon, and Wyoming.

August 2020

PBV and Mod Rehab: Added to the NHPD.

HUD insured: HUD insured mortgages listed in HUD’s terminated mortgage database with a maturity date in the future and a termination type code not equal to 20, 14, 17, 18, 60, 13, 26, 11, or 21 are now classified as inconclusive.

June 2019

LIHTC: Tax credits allocated before 1990 or are nonprogrammatic are reclassified as inactive. �HUD insured: HUD insured mortgages added to the NHPD if the property received another subsidy.

February 2019

LIHTC: Tax credits allocated before 1990 updated to have 15-year affordability period. Tax credit end dates updated to reflect state-mandated affordability restriction requirements.

April 2018

Section 8: Section 8 contracts that received a Section 202 or 811 capital advance had subsidy end dates extended by 40 years.

December 2018

Section 8: Section 8 contracts that underwent a full mark-to-market agreement had subsidy end dates extended by 30 years.

September 2017

All: New data cleaning process. Subsidy status for subsidies missing end dates and Section 8 contracts that expired by less than one year are reclassified as inconclusive. �HUD insured: HFA risk sharing mortgages added.

February 2016

HOME, Section 515, and Section 202: Data updated for the first time in over 3 years

February 2015

HUD Insured: HUD insured mortgages not affiliated to affordable properties were removed. �LIHTC: Subsidy status of nonprogrammatic LIHTC subsidies changed to inactive.

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NHPD Refresh Process

Obtain updated data

Review data and run initial data standardizations

Import data to custom import tool

Verify data format is correct

Standardize text fields

Geocode and verify addresses through API

Match records in file to records in database

Review potential duplicates

Update matched records and perform calculations

Review all changes

Manually review incomplete and incorrect addresses

Publish updates

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Published NHPD Research

Natural Hazards

Transit

Eviction

Siting Decisions

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Data Enrichment Potential

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Other Data Sources to Pair with the NHPD: Property Characteristics

Resident Demographics

Property Condition

    • Local code enforcement violations

Funding Incentives

Funding Characteristics

    • HUD eGIS
    • Housing Finance Agency data
    • Local housing trust fund awardees

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Other Data Sources to Pair: Housing Choice

Housing Policies

Opportunity

Housing Market

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Other Data Sources to Pair: Natural Hazards