In times like the Great Recession, when the economy grinds to a halt, entrepreneurs like Michael Altheimer can’t help but start thinking: What if?
“Before the crash, we were doing mostly for-sale housing, but during the crash, we started learning about underwriting rental housing,” Altheimer says. “Market values came down tremendously, a few buildings came up. We thought to ourselves, ‘hey we could take this on,’ and we came up with a vision of becoming a major provider of affordable rental housing.” Fast-forward to today and Altheimer’s company, Miro Development, owns and manages 330 units of affordable housing across more than 20 multifamily buildings, mostly on the South Side of Chicago. With HUD facing the prospect of continued cuts to funding to build and operate low-income housing, affordable housing developers like Altheimer may become even more crucial than they already are — because they don’t use any subsidies.
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