Ofer Elitzur

Ofer Elitzur is a transactional project finance attorney who focuses on affordable housing and mixed-income residential real estate projects.  

Ofer is a nationally recognized leader in affordable housing and has been involved in the financing and development of hundreds of thousands of units of mixed-income and low-income restricted rental housing throughout the United States, assisting for-profit and non-profit developers in generating and implementing the complex financial and legal engineering necessary to construct and operate these projects. He has a particular specialty in structuring complex financings utilizing tax-exempt bonds, low-income housing tax credits, property tax exemptions (including California’s welfare exemption from property tax), and other public subsidies.  Ofer utilizes his experience and in-depth knowledge of current debt and equity market terms and participants to help clients in the acquisition, disposition, financing, and development of multifamily affordable housing projects, including mixed-income projects, mixed-use projects, middle-income projects, transit-oriented developments, and inclusionary housing projects. 

Extensive Experience in Affordable Housing  

Ofer has extensive experience in a broad range of affordable housing transactions, including new construction projects, acquisition/rehabilitation projects, partnership interest acquisitions and dispositions, and tax credit investor buy-outs and other “year 15” transactions.  He is sought out nationally for his extensive experience in purchase and sale transactions in which a buyer either seeks to preserve and improve an existing low-income restricted apartment community, or seeks to convert an unrestricted property into a new low-income restricted apartment community.  He also is considered one of the leading authorities on California's welfare exemption from property tax for affordable housing and played a key role in the adoption of regulations clarifying the exemption.   

Broad Residential Rental Real Estate Industry Experience  

Ofer's experience spans all aspects of acquisition, disposition, and financing of market rate, mixed-income, and low-income restricted residential rental properties, including structuring, negotiating, and documenting joint venture arrangements on behalf of developers and investors, and representing borrowers in all aspects of real estate-secured debt financings, mezzanine loan financings, and other structured debt transactions.  

Represented the developer of the required affordable housing component of a large master-planned community in connection with the acquisition and financing of that property, which representation included advice regarding utilization of master planned community facilities fee credits in a low-income housing tax credit financed deal. 

Advised an equity provider in connection with its acquisition of a high profile, partially constructed tax exempt bond-financed mixed-use project with an affordable housing component through a multi-stage acquisition of the ownership interest in the project-owning entity, which acquisition included (i) assumption of existing construction and conversion to permanent financing, and (ii) structuring a low-income unit master lease arrangement to facilitate low-income housing tax credit delivery and utilization. 

Represented the developer in the financing of a five-property scattered site affordable housing project, involving tax exempt multi-family housing bonds, low-income housing tax credits, United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development loan funds, and Tax Credit Assistance Program grant funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, in a first-of-its-kind financing transaction in New Mexico. 

Represented the developer of a hotel project in a unique construction financing transaction involving a loan of proceeds from the sale of tax-exempt Recovery Zone Facility Bonds authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. 

Represented two San Francisco Bay Area nonprofit schools in tax-exempt bond loans for the construction of new school campus facilities. 

Represented the borrower in a loan transaction secured by a pledge of equity interests in a handful of entities that indirectly owned controlling partnership interests in a portfolio of dozens of existing, fully-financed, and operating low-income restricted apartment communities. 

Negotiated a global settlement between an equity investor and one of its developer partners pursuant to which the developer partner agreed to withdraw from a portfolio of low-income restricted project-owning partnerships. 

Honors & Recognitions

Named a Winner of Connect CRE's Lawyers in Real Estate Award, 2023

Best Lawyers, Real Estate Law, 2020-2021, 2024

Northern California Super Lawyers Rising Stars, 2009-2010

Top 40 Under 40, featured in San Francisco Magazine and Law and Politics Magazine, 2009

Professional Affiliations

State Bar of California

Bar Association of San Francisco