"GHURA runs HOME and the National Housing Trust Fund for Guam, but neither program shows up anywhere in the LIHTC QAP's scoring or its threshold checklist — so is HOME or HTF money actually part of a Guam LIHTC capital stack, where would that ever get documented in the application, and what does Guam's own real property tax actually do to a project once it's built and generating income?"
GHURA runs HOME and the National Housing Trust Fund for Guam — the QAP gives them one generic scoring line
GHURA wears two hats that this QAP does not clearly separate for an applicant. As the section 42 housing credit agency, GHURA administers the 9% competitive LIHTC round described in this QAP. Separately, GHURA is Guam's designated grantee for the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, which it describes on its own website as a program it "administers... on behalf of Guam" as one of the insular areas (alongside American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands) eligible for HOME funding; GHURA's HOME page lists rental housing development as one of four eligible activity categories, restricted to households at or below 80 percent of Guam's median income. GHURA is also Guam's grantee for the National Housing Trust Fund, which Congress made available to insular areas under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. Neither program appears by name anywhere in the LIHTC QAP's threshold requirements or its fifteen scoring criteria.
| Documentation on file | Points |
|---|---|
| No below-market loan or grant applied for from a federal agency or Government of Guam agency, or the amount applied for is less than 10% of total development cost | 0 |
| Application for financing has been submitted to a federal agency or Government of Guam agency (documentation of the submission required) | 1 |
| A commitment letter or contractual agreement from a federal agency or Government of Guam agency has been received (copy required in the application) | 2 |
The 10%-of-total-development-cost threshold applies to the loan or grant amount, not to the number of points available. A HOME or HTF commitment of any size below that threshold scores zero under this criterion even though the QAP does not say so explicitly anywhere else.
In practice this means a HOME or HTF award large enough to matter to the capital stack earns exactly the same two points as a Government of Guam capital grant, a USDA Rural Development loan, or any other qualifying below-market source — the QAP does not weight HOME or HTF more heavily the way some mainland QAPs weight federal soft money, and it does not require or even reference coordinated underwriting between the LIHTC application and a HOME/HTF application filed with the same agency. An applicant layering HOME or HTF funds into a Guam deal should expect to run two separate, uncoordinated approval processes at GHURA — the LIHTC Application on the QAP calendar, and a HOME or HTF application on GHURA's own HUD program-year calendar — and to document the HOME/HTF outcome in the LIHTC Application only as evidence for Criteria 9.
A separate agency, the Guam Housing Corporation (GHC), is sometimes confused with GHURA in secondary sources. GHC was established in 1965 to provide mortgage financing to first-time, low- and moderate-income homebuyers who cannot secure conventional financing — a single-family homeownership lender, not a multifamily rental gap-financing source. GHC is not a source of soft money for a LIHTC rental deal, and this research found no GHC program directed at rental housing development.
No state credit, no 4%/bond track in the QAP — and a pending local bill that is not a LIHTC program
Both the 2024 and 2025 QAP texts describe a single credit mechanism: the federal 9% "Credits Set Aside," used for new construction or substantial rehabilitation without other federal below-market financing, plus an Income Averaging minimum set-aside election under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 (2025 LIHTC QAP, Section II.B.2.a). Neither document contains the words "bond," "4%," "tax-exempt bond issue," or "private activity bond" in connection with a parallel non-competitive credit track — the only bond reference in either QAP is a compliance-monitoring exception for buildings 50% or more financed by tax-exempt bonds under Rural Housing Service Section 515 (2025 LIHTC QAP, Section VI, "Rural Housing Service (RHS) and Tax-exempt Bond Issue Projects"), which is about inspection relief, not a credit-delivery mechanism. The Guam Economic Development Authority (GEDA) is described in its own materials as Guam's tax-exempt private-activity-bond issuer and separately promotes a "Guam Housing Bonds" program, but this research located no record connecting a GEDA bond issuance to a QAP-integrated 4% LIHTC pipeline. Whether a workable 4%/bond LIHTC track exists on Guam in practice — outside of what either QAP itself describes — is a genuinely open question this research could not resolve, and it should be confirmed directly with GHURA and GEDA rather than assumed.
A bill introduced in the 38th Guam Legislature, Bill 306-38, would create a separate, non-LIHTC local tax credit for developers who sign a land use restrictive agreement (LURA). As reported by the Guam Daily Post following an April 28, 2026 public hearing, the bill would let a developer holding a tax credit certificate redirect Business Privilege Tax otherwise owed to the Department of Revenue and Taxation back into the project for the LURA period, up to a stated share of the credit the bill would authorize, and it defines "affordable housing" as units serving households between 50% and 150% of area median income — a materially different, broader income band than the federal LIHTC program's 60% AMI ceiling. GHURA's own Deputy Director testified that the agency opposes the bill as currently written (while supporting its intent) and recommended narrowing the income band to 80%-150% of AMI, adding rent controls, and requiring Guam tax-filer status. This research found no record of Bill 306-38 having passed into law as of this writing. Because the bill is (a) not enacted, (b) not administered by GHURA under this QAP, and (c) built around a different affordability definition than the federal credit, it should not be treated as an available capital-stack source for a current LIHTC deal, and its status should be re-checked directly with the Guam Legislature before relying on it in any proforma.
Guam's real property tax is fully active — and it has its own statutory formula for LIHTC-restricted rent
Guam's real property tax is not a dormant or repealed mechanism. The Department of Revenue and Taxation's Real Property Tax Division describes itself as responsible for "the administration and enforcement of the real property tax laws mandated by Section 24101, Title 11, Guam Code Annotated," issuing annual tax statements and pursuing tax sales and tax deeds on delinquent accounts. The base levy under 11 GCA § 24103 is 7/72% of the value of the land plus 7/18% of the value of the improvements, assessed and collected annually.
Section 24401(a) exempts "all property title to which is in the United States or the government of Guam" from real property tax — with one carve-out that matters directly for LIHTC site control on Guam: the exemption does not extend to "the interest of a lessee or licensee in land owned and leased or licensed by the Chamorro Land Trust Commission." A LIHTC project built on Chamorro Land Trust Commission land — a common site-control arrangement given how much of Guam's land base was taken for military use after World War II and later returned through Chamorro Land Trust and Ancestral Lands mechanisms — is not shielded from real property tax simply because the underlying fee title sits with a government entity; the developer's leasehold interest is separately taxable. A narrower, different protection exists at § 24401(a)(1): the Legislature also directed that taxes not be levied against "any autonomous agency, public corporation, and other public instrumentalities of the government of Guam with existing leases where a tax levy may affect the revenue neutrality of that... instrumentality... to the potential detriment of existing bond ratings" — a provision aimed at protecting agencies like GHURA itself from a tax levy that would hurt their own bond ratings, not a blanket shield for a private for-profit developer's ground lease.
This research also checked § 24402, the "Home Tax Exemption," which reduces the taxable value of an owner-occupied home's improvements by up to $50,000. That exemption is written for an owner who occupies the property as a residence; nothing in its text extends it to a multifamily rental development, and it should not be assumed to apply to a LIHTC project's units.
| Element | Rule as written |
|---|---|
| Valuation method | "The assessed valuation of real property used for residential rental purposes wherein the land is restricted to requirements of the federal low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) program... shall be determined using the income approach as applied to the actual net operating income" — not a market or replacement-cost approach |
| What NOI excludes | The statute directs that the assessed valuation "shall not include federal or local income tax credits, subsidized mortgage financing, or project grants, where such subsidies are used to offset the project development cost in order to provide for lower initial rents" — tax credit equity and soft-money subsidies are stripped out of the income figure used to value the property |
| Capitalization rate | Initially set at 9.41% by statute, adjustable by I Liheslaturan Guåhan "based on demonstrable changes in actual market conditions" |
| Assessment ratio | The statute's own example applies the resulting capitalized value at 70% for tax purposes before the millage rate is applied |
| Worked example (statute's own text) | NOI of $100,000 ÷ 9.41% = $1,062,699 capitalized value × 70% = $743,889 taxable value, times the applicable millage rate |
| Oversight | The Director of Revenue and Taxation must report annually to the Governor and the Speaker of the Legislature on the program's impact, if any, on property tax collections |
This is a valuation formula, not an exemption or a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement — a LIHTC property still pays real property tax every year under § 24116, just calculated off actual net operating income rather than market comparables. Because it is NOI-driven, the tax bill rises as a project's real operating performance improves, which cuts the other way from a flat exemption or abatement.
Historic preservation: one QAP scoring point, and an unresolved question about the federal rehabilitation credit
The QAP's Criteria 14 awards 1 of 111 points if "the proposed project involves the preservation of a building(s) on a national or state historic registry" (2025 LIHTC QAP, Section III, Criteria 14) — a scoring incentive, not a tax credit, and worth a fraction of a percent of the total available score.
Separately, Guam's territorial income tax is a "mirror code" under Section 31 of the Organic Act of Guam (48 U.S.C. § 1421i), which in general terms replicates the U.S. Internal Revenue Code with "Guam" substituted for "United States." In principle, that mirror structure would carry the federal 20% Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit under IRC § 47 into Guam's own tax code. This research did not find a Guam Department of Revenue and Taxation ruling, regulation, or GHURA guidance document confirming that the credit has actually been used on a certified historic LIHTC building in Guam, and it did not resolve the more practical question of how a mirror-code territorial credit interacts with a mainland corporate LIHTC equity investor who owes real U.S. federal tax rather than Guam's mirrored territorial tax. That interaction is a specialized cross-border tax question outside what this QAP-focused research can confirm one way or the other — a developer contemplating a historic Guam LIHTC deal should get Guam-qualified tax counsel to confirm whether the federal credit actually monetizes for the specific investor structure being used, rather than assuming it does because the mirror code exists.
Where this goes wrong
- Assuming HOME or National Housing Trust Fund dollars are part of the same application the QAP scores. GHURA administers both as separate HUD grant programs on their own program-year calendars, entirely apart from the LIHTC Application.
- Confusing the Guam Housing Corporation with a multifamily LIHTC gap-financing source. GHC is a single-family, first-time-homebuyer mortgage lender established in 1965, not a rental-housing soft-money agency.
- Assuming Guam's real property tax has been repealed or is inactive. It is actively assessed and collected annually by the Department of Revenue and Taxation's Real Property Tax Division, which can pursue tax sales and tax deeds for delinquency.
- Treating 11 GCA § 24116 as a tax exemption or a PILOT agreement. It is a valuation methodology — the property still pays real property tax every year, calculated off actual net operating income rather than market comparables, and the bill rises as the project's real NOI rises.
- Assuming a Chamorro Land Trust Commission ground lease carries the same tax-exempt status as government-owned fee land. Section 24401(a) specifically carves out a lessee's or licensee's interest in CLTC land as taxable, unlike land the government of Guam or the United States holds outright.
- Modeling Bill 306-38 as available financing in a current capital stack. It is a pending bill, not enacted law as of this research, uses a 50%-150% (or GHURA's proposed 80%-150%) AMI band that does not match LIHTC's 60% AMI ceiling, and GHURA itself has testified against it as drafted.
- Assuming a 4% credit/tax-exempt bond pathway exists on Guam because GEDA issues private activity bonds generally. No bond-financed 4% LIHTC track is described in either the 2024 or 2025 QAP text, and this research found no record tying a GEDA bond issuance to a QAP-integrated 4% pipeline.
- Assuming the federal historic rehabilitation tax credit automatically delivers value to a mainland LIHTC equity investor the same way it would for a state credit. The mirror-code mechanism is real in principle, but whether it actually monetizes for a mainland-taxed investor in a Guam deal is unresolved by this research and should be confirmed with Guam-qualified tax counsel.
- Treating Criteria 9's 2 points as meaningful gap-financing scoring weight. It is the QAP's only functional acknowledgment that outside government money exists, worth the same 2 points whether the source is HOME, HTF, a USDA loan, or a Government of Guam grant.
- HUD
- LIHTC
- State QAPs
- IRS § 42
- Housing Finance Agencies