OHFA 2022 Fourth Quarter Agency at a Glance

OHFA UPDATE - PAGE 3 - 2022 FOURTH QUARTER PARTNERING WITH ESUSU TO HELP RESIDENTS BUILD CREDIT SCORES SEAN THOMAS SENIOR ADVISOR FOR HOUSING POLICY AND PROGRAMS In November, the Ohio Housing Finance Agency (OHFA) Board approved a partnership with Esusu Financial, Inc., the leading financial technology company leveraging rent reporting for credit building, to help 442 families build their credit scores. The Esusu online platform will link the property management software used by the managers of nine affordable housing developments to the three national credit bureaus to automatically report on-time rent payments. Rent is the largest and most consistent debt payment a renting household makes each month. Capturing on-time rental payments will help residents build and/or improve their credit scores. This partnership aligns with OHFA’s commitment to advance equity through affordable housing and helps residents in OHFA-funded communities improve their long-term financial wellbeing. The properties participating in the partnership will be placed in service by December 31, 2024, and the Esusu rent reporting platform will be subsidized for the property’s entire 15-year compliance period. OHFA will use approximately $130,000 to support this program. In 2023, OHFA will release new competitive criteria for the 2024–2025 Qualified Allocation Plan and 2023 Bond Gap Financing Guidelines, which will encourage developers building new family apartments to provide the Esusu or a comparable on-time resident rent reporting service to all residents during the 15-year compliance period at no cost to OHFA or the residents. Founded in 2018, Esusu’s platform captures on-time rental payment data and reports it to credit bureaus to boost credit scores. This enables tenants to build and establish their credit scores while helping property owners attract tenants, reduce turnover, and improve collections to increase operating income. Esusu has a blended workforce of 200 people and is headquartered in New York City. Its customers reach over 3 million rental units across all 50 states in the United States. The Esusu rent reporting platform assists 3.5 million renters nationally, and it recently collaborated with both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to provide its rent reporting platform to properties financed by each entity.