This year’s AHF 50 developers started construction on 44,613 affordable housing units in 352 developments across the country in 2025.
Once again, the developers list is led by fast-growing Lincoln Avenue Communities, which reported starting construction on 2,989 affordable homes in 15 developments in 2025. The company, which topped the list last year, also acquired nearly 2,500 units.
During the past year, the firm expanded to have a presence in 30 states.
Kittle Property Group, LDG Development, The Pacific Cos., and Roers Cos. round out the top five.
New to the list is JPI, coming in at No. 6 after starting construction on 10 projects with 1,521 affordable units in 2025. A leading market-rate developer, the Dallas-based firm expanded its affordable housing development activity year over year by roughly 200%, primarily through mixed-income communities.
An example is the $132 million Jefferson Bonnie Brae development in Denton, Texas. In partnership with the Denton Housing Authority, JPI broke ground on the 461-unit workforce housing community in 2025. About half of the units will be dedicated to families earning up to 80% of the area median income.
The AHF 50 developers list is determined by the number of new affordable housing units started in 2025.
Looking at the numbers, there was about a 2.3% drop in units and a 3.6% drop in projects started compared with the prior year’s AHF 50 group, which included 51 firms because there was one tie.
This looks to be following larger market trends. Overall, multifamily housing construction has been slowing, with approximately 416,000 multifamily units started in 2025. This was well below the three-decade peak of 547,000 units in 2022 but above the average pace in the years leading up to the pandemic, according to the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies, noting that recent data from RealPage showed a 36% year-over-year drop in fourth quarter starts for professionally managed apartments, potentially signaling a broader slowdown.
On the other hand, affordable housing completions were up. The firms on the latest AHF 50 list reported completing 332 projects with 42,217 units last year. That’s a nearly 10% increase in projects and an 18% increase in units completed when compared with the prior year's group.
In addition, AHF unveiled its top 50 owners list as well as the top 10 companies completing acquisitions and top 10 companies completing substantial rehabs in 2025.
TOP CONCERNS
In all, 111 firms took part in the latest survey. The February poll provides a look into affordable housing activity as well as developer sentiment.
About 36.4% of all respondents expect affordable housing finance conditions to remain the same by year-end, with opinion otherwise nearly evenly divided—32.3% anticipate conditions will worsen, while 31.3% believe they will improve. That’s a change from a year ago when 44.9% expected conditions to worsen.
A number of issues are contributing to the differing outlook. When asked about their biggest concern, 21.6% of the developers cited the elimination of state and local resources, followed by rising operating costs, 18.2%.
That’s also a change from a year ago when the elimination of federal resources, 26%, and the availability and price of low-income housing tax credits (LIHTCs), 20%, were the top two concerns.
“Housing affordability has become one of the top issues across the country. In 2025, True Ground met the issue head on by demonstrating significant progress on the supply side while keeping 99% of residents housed," says Carmen Romero, president and CEO of No. 46 True Ground Housing Partners, a nonprofit developer serving Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. "While the capital needed to start developments became increasingly strained, True Ground overcame these challenges by working with partners, both private and public, to accelerate production. Simultaneously, as practitioners, we actively contributed to public policy conversations to promote solutions that responded to a changing market.”
In addition to tighter resources, others cite external factors such as rising oil prices and growing inflation contributing to the uncertainty this year.
Let’s look at some of the other survey results. AHF found that operating costs per unit per year averaged about $8,187 last year. That’s a jump from $7,671 in 2024.
However, the average development cost per unit on new construction projects ticked down slightly from $436,273 to $435,176. This may be attributed to developers seeing the cost of labor and materials stabilize last year.
On a positive note, developers report seeing opportunities ahead with the expansion of LIHTC resources and growing attention on housing affordability.
After breaking ground on nearly 45,000 affordable units last year, the firms on the AHF 50 developers list expect to be even busier, projecting to start construction on more than 56,000 affordable units in 432 projects this year.
