Assembling and filing the application — New Hampshire

The shape of the phase

By the time a New Hampshire deal reaches application assembly, site, financing structure, and unit mix are already set. What's left is producing a single core workbook and a growing exhibit stack across two sequential filings — a Preliminary Application in July and a Final Application in September — against one fixed Board vote in December. There is no second 9% round the same year if you miss it or lose.

Unlike a state that runs several rounds a year, New Hampshire runs one 9% competitive round annually. Miss July 10, or fall short at the December 17 Board vote, and the next opportunity is the following year's round — under whatever QAP is then in effect. The current plan (dated March 16, 2026, covering the 2027-2028 cycle) already differs from the one that governed the prior round.

Two programs, two different clocks

9% credits run through the single competitive round above. 4% credits paired with tax-exempt bonds run on an entirely separate track — a Notice of Funding Opportunity NH Housing reissues each fiscal year — and most 4% deals aren't scored at all.

The application is the deliverable

There is one core workbook — the NH Housing Financing Application, an Excel file — filed twice with an expanding tab list, on top of a growing exhibit stack.

A Final Application filed without a preceding Preliminary Application in the same round is not accepted — there is no route around the two-step structure, even if you applied in a prior round.

Self-scoring happens twice: once as Preliminary Exhibit 10 and again as Final Exhibit 3, each time with references and explanations to all documentation submitted for every claimed point. NH Housing does not check the preliminary self-score against scoring criteria at all — only threshold and underwriting feedback is given at that stage, plus a feedback meeting and a site visit. Scoring verification happens for the first time when the final application lands, which is also the last point a gap can still be fixed.

Caps and thresholds that decide eligibility before scoring

Several hard numeric ceilings apply before a single scoring point is counted. Exceeding them gets an application revised or rejected outright, not merely docked points.

The 130% basis boost is available to both 4% and 9% projects sited in a HUD-designated Difficult to Develop Area or Qualified Census Tract, where the boost is required for feasibility and at least 25% of units are reserved at or below 50% AMI. A separate rural-area path — feasibility plus an NH Housing-designated rural location, with no 25%-AMI condition — is open to 9% projects only; 4% projects paired with tax-exempt bonds qualify for the boost solely through the DDA/QCT path, not the rural path.

Elections that lock at filing

None of these are late-stage corrections. The applicant-count and pipeline rules are checked against every named principal, general partner, property owner, and development agent — a sponsor with two unfinished deals anywhere in its portfolio cannot bring a third 9% application into the same round, regardless of how strong the new site is.

Your self-score gets checked once, and you get one cure

NH Housing's verification model looks more forgiving on its face than a pure after-the-fact audit — and is considerably less forgiving in practice, because the fix window is two business days and granted entirely at the agency's discretion.

At least one age-restricted and two general occupancy projects are funded each round if they clear threshold and credits remain — even over higher-scoring applications — but an age-restricted project needs at least 100 points, not merely the 80-point threshold, to invoke that protection.

In a tie, NH Housing favors the project delivering the greatest number of net new units, then the lowest LIHTC per rent-restricted unit — a much shorter tiebreaker than a percentage-based formula. Preservation ties instead go to whichever project scored more of the Preservation Scoring Matrix's own points.

The safety net is the Cure Period, available at NH Housing's sole discretion during final review, not preliminary review. Curable defects are narrow: a missing document or signature that existed, or was legally effective, as of the deadline, or a clarification of a contradictory statement that accurately reflects the situation as of the deadline. Applicants get two business days from email notification to respond. Silence, a late reply, or an inadequate one draws a negative inference — NH Housing may deny the points category or rule the application threshold-ineligible outright.

Where NH Housing's own documents disagree

Two figures in the current filing cycle's own published materials don't match. The 2027 Preliminary and Final Application Process Summary (dated May 8, 2026) tells applicants the HUD Environmental Checklist consultant fee is $900; the Fee Schedule effective February 1, 2026 lists the identical fee at $1,000. Confirm the live number with NH Housing directly before cutting a check, rather than trusting either PDF in isolation.

The current Final Exhibits list — also dated May 2026, for the 2027 round whose actual final deadline is September 25, 2026 — instructs that construction cost estimates be "developed not more than six months prior to the application deadline of September 29, 2025," a date carried over unedited from an earlier cycle's document. Treat the rule (cost estimates dated within six months of your actual deadline) as controlling and the stale date as a drafting artifact, not as evidence of an earlier real deadline.

The QAP itself does not state a numeric freshness window for the market study inside its threshold criteria (HFA 109.06.C) — it points instead to a separate Market Study Report Requirements document on NH Housing's website. This guide did not verify that document's specific day-count, and you shouldn't infer one from another state's QAP; confirm it directly with NH Housing.

The 2025 round's final scores (78 to 154 points across 11 applications) were produced under the 2025-2026 QAP's scoring categories, not the current 2027-2028 plan's. The minimum thresholds above (106/80/110) are current-cycle numbers — don't benchmark a new self-score against last round's published totals as if the point structure carried over unchanged.

After you file

Representations on ownership, management, and every scoring or selection factor — including sources and uses — cannot change without NH Housing's written permission once filed, and a reservation can be rescinded if a change reduces the competitive score or if a known source or use goes undisclosed at any later stage.

Denial letters go out by email within two business days of the Board's action; an applicant has five business days from receipt to file a written appeal, which the Multifamily Housing Committee considers and recommends on before the Board decides again. And because NH Housing is a public agency subject to New Hampshire's Right-to-Know Law, the application itself — apart from genuinely confidential financial information — becomes a governmental record open to inspection once filed.