IREI interviews the SDSID Team interviewed Deborah La Franchi and Managing Director Jason Riffe on SDS Capital Group’s launch of SDS Impact Debt–a new debt platform for affordable housing developers.
MARCH 20, 2025
SDS Capital launches $1b affordable housing debt platform
by Released
SDS Capital Group has launched SDS Impact Debt (SDSID). This new capital platform
provides below-market permanent and construction financing for the preservation and
development of affordable housing throughout the United States.
SDSID is expected to finance more than $1 billion of new housing units during the next
18 months. SDSID is currently focused on closing six financings for 1,427 units of
multifamily housing, 54 percent affordable to families at 80 percent of area median
income or less (AMI).
Under Jason Riffe’s direction, managing director of SDSID, this new product line will
complement SDS’s current $1.7 billion of assets under management through its five
impact funds and its other third-party investment support services. To date, SDS has
invested in more than 8,000 housing units across the United States — 72 percent of
them affordable to families making less than 80 percent of AMI or are permanent
supportive housing units for the unhoused.
It will use a variety of private asset-based products to offer financing for a single or pool
of assets with terms ranging from three to 40 years, priced at 150–250 basis points
below current retail debt offerings with an LTV up to 90 percent.
“We are launching a whole new one-stop program in which affordable housing
developers can obtain both their debt and equity under one-roof in states in which SDS
is active,” explained Riffe. “This eliminates the traditional and time-consuming process
of applying for grants and other public funding that can take years to obtain. By offering
a single source of financing with equity options and competitively priced debt, SDS is
supplying the two key components of the capital stack, helping to dramatically reduce
time and cost to bring an affordable housing project to market.”
