Many affordable housing projects in Washington are funded in part by the state’s Housing Trust Fund.
A new report from the Department of Commerce looked at the cost of building more than 1,200 new affordable units with money from the fund last year. It shows project costs dipped but remained up overall statewide.
Many affordable housing developers layer multiple types of funding to get projects built, including the Housing Trust Fund and the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit. About 81% of projects included in the report had both these types of funding.
The new report included projects that submitted final development cost data to Commerce between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023. Other multifamily housing projects not covered in the report received Housing Trust Fund dollars during this time but had not submitted cost certification documents.
Here are three takeaways from the report.
Costs are down, but still high compared to earlier years.
The median cost per unit for multifamily housing that received Housing Trust Fund support in 2023 was $301,744. That’s down from 2022 when the median was $316,097.
From 2019 to 2021, the cost per unit was well below $300,000 but rising. In 2019, it was $207,496, and in 2021, it was $262,331.
These costs include everything a developer paid for land, infrastructure and any financial reserves.
The most expensive units are in King County where the median cost per unit was $356,813, and the least expensive units are in rural areas where the median cost is $221,784.
Meanwhile, the median cost per square foot was $494 last year – that’s up $102 from the previous year. Projects in King County also had the most expensive costs per square foot, with a median of $551. That’s compared to $452 in other urban areas and $299 in rural areas.
Fewer projects submitted cost data in 2023 than previous years.
According to the data, the Housing Trust Fund helped build 21 multifamily projects across the state in 2023.
That’s a drop from 32 the year before and way down from 2019 when there were 51.
King County had the most projects with five. It also had some of the largest projects with most having close to 100 units.
There were more projects in urban areas than rural areas with nine built in urban counties like Snohomish and Spokane compared to seven in rural counties like Yakima and Whitman.
Projects yielded less housing.
The number of housing units in multifamily projects was down compared to past years. In 2019, multifamily projects covered in the report had a median of 114 units. Last year, the median was 56. In 2022 it was 99.
Rural projects had the least units, with only 46 per project. That’s compared to about 65 units in urban areas.
The size of the projects varied significantly. A project in King County in the Bitter Lake neighborhood had the most units with 100, but many projects had fewer than 30 units, including the smallest one, in Kennewick, with 16 units.
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