Real Estate Investment and Affordable Housing Join Forces in Austin

Austin, Texas, is one of the fastest growing cities in America – but that growth is causing a real estate affordability crisis for the middle-income residents who compose the city’s core workforce. In 2016, a non-profit organization, Affordable Central Texas (ACT), founded the Austin Housing Conservancy (AHC) Fund to meet this crisis. AHC is an investment fund that buys multifamily apartment properties in neighborhoods throughout Austin and preserves their long-term affordability for people who are the backbone of the city. AHC therefore bridges two worlds: the investment world and the non-profit world.

The unique hybrid nature of this social impact fund requires an additional level of care. David Steinwedell, CEO at ACT, explains, “Most funds are not managed by a nonprofit organization. We have to be entirely transparent in the way our Fund spends its resources.” AHC has achieved that transparency plus a superior level of operational optimization through Backstop Solutions.

Backstop Solutions provides AHC with the ability to manage and track its investments closely and communicate the status and results to its investors readily. Yael Ouzillou, Investor Relations at ACT, notes, “Backstop is absolutely enhancing communications internally, allowing us to track where we are with specific investors. There are efficiencies in this because we’re not keeping the information stored in twenty different spreadsheets.”

With better supervision of investments, stronger communications with investors, and superb transparency of Fund activity, AHC is well-positioned to achieve both its investment and social goals. Learn more by reading the full case study here.