About the Colorado Affordable Housing Data Reference
A comprehensive platform for understanding Low-Income Housing Tax Credit allocations, market dynamics, and affordable housing development across the United States.
Platform Purpose
This public data reference provides data-driven context on how federal housing tax credits are allocated, priced, and deployed across states and metro regions. Our platform serves affordable housing developers, tax credit investors, housing finance agencies, and community development professionals.
We consolidate data from authoritative sources to help users understand policy variations, market conditions, and development opportunities in the affordable housing sector.
Why LIHTC Matters
The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program is the federal government's primary tool for encouraging private investment in affordable rental housing. Since 1986, LIHTC has financed approximately 3.6 million affordable rental units across all 50 states.
While federally authorized, LIHTC operates through a state-level allocation system. Each state housing finance agency designs its own Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP), creating distinct development environments, risk profiles, and investment outcomes across regions.
Core Sources
Economy & Inflation
- Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) — economic indicators, interest rates, housing starts
- BLS Producer Price Index (PPI) — construction input costs by material category
- BLS Current Population Survey (CPS) — labor force and employment
- BLS JOLTS — job openings and labor turnover
Census
- American Community Survey (ACS) — population, housing, and income data
- Census New Residential Construction — housing starts and permits
HUD
- HUD QCT/DDA Designations — qualified census tracts and difficult development areas
- HUD Income Limits — area median income limits by geography
- HUD LIHTC Dataset (landing page) — project-level LIHTC allocation data
- HUD LIHTC Query Tool — interactive project search
LIHTC & Policy
- NCSHA — state housing finance agency information and LIHTC policy resources
- Novogradac Affordable Housing Tax Credits Hub — market analysis and pricing data
- Novogradac QCT/DDA Mapping Tool — interactive mapping tool
Colorado
- CHFA HousingTaxCreditProperties (live ArcGIS) — primary source for Colorado LIHTC project locations and data (Colorado Housing and Finance Authority; 926 projects through 2025)
- HUD LIHTC FeatureServer — secondary / fallback source (national database; lags Colorado data by 2–3 years)
- CHFA — Colorado Housing and Finance Authority LIHTC program and allocations
- DOLA Proposition 123 — local government affordable housing commitments
CRA / Finance
- FFIEC CRA — Community Reinvestment Act data and disclosure reports
- NCUA Grants & Community Development — credit union community development resources
Methodology
Data Aggregation: Data is consolidated from authoritative public sources and validated against multiple references to ensure accuracy.
Colorado LIHTC Data Provenance: For Colorado-specific LIHTC analyses, the primary data source is the CHFA (Colorado Housing and Finance Authority) ArcGIS FeatureServer, which provides the most current Colorado project data. If CHFA's endpoint is unreachable or returns an empty result, the system automatically falls back to the HUD LIHTC ArcGIS service. For all other states, HUD is the live source. An embedded Colorado fallback dataset is used when both live APIs are unavailable. The active data source is clearly labeled (Source: CHFA / Source: HUD) on LIHTC project listings and in each project popup.
State Allocations: Per-capita calculations use Census Bureau population estimates (ACS population or Census estimates as used on the page). Allocation tiers are based on total dollar amounts, not adjusted for cost of living or construction costs. Rankings are sorted descending by selected metric; ties follow stable sort / alphabetical where applicable.
Market Analysis: Pricing data reflects secondary market transactions and may vary by deal structure, investor type, and state-specific factors.
Economic Indicators: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) provides standardized metrics updated according to each series' publication schedule. CPI and PPI are index levels, not dollars; changes are computed on index levels. Charts show native units (SAAR, %, index, or dollars as labeled).
Commodity & Cost Indicators: Commodity and cost indicators are reported from BLS PPI series accessed via FRED. The site charts observed data and simple changes (e.g., year-over-year), not forward projections unless explicitly labeled.
Site Calculations
Year-over-Year % Change: (current − prior_year) / prior_year × 100
Per-Capita Allocations: allocation ÷ population using ACS population estimates or Census estimates as available for the geography shown.
Ranking Logic: Sorted descending by selected metric; ties follow stable sort / alphabetical where applicable.
Index Series: CPI and PPI are index levels, not dollar amounts. Changes are computed directly on index levels.
Units & Scaling: Charts show native units — SAAR (seasonally adjusted annual rate), percentage points, index levels, or dollars — as labeled on each chart.
Maps: Maps are rendered with Leaflet; basemap tiles may be sourced from OpenStreetMap contributors (per tile provider attribution).
Disclaimer
Updates & Maintenance
Data Refresh: Data updates are automated via GitHub Actions where configured; refresh cadence varies by source/series. Some datasets update daily/weekly/monthly; others update when agencies publish new releases.
Economic Indicators: FRED series are fetched daily by a scheduled workflow and cached in data/fred-data.json; individual series update on FRED's own publication schedule.
Policy Changes: QAP updates tracked as state agencies publish new allocation plans.
Last Update: Q1 2026