of Mississippi
Culleywood was founded by natives of Jackson, Mississippi, with over 25 years of experience in community development and small business lending. To date, our team has deployed over $200 million in socially-driven investments in our service area. As residents and multi-generational Mississippians, the founding management team is personally invested in the community and its long-term success.
Our Financial Products
Pre-Development Loans for affordable and workforce housing development
Serving the “Missing Middle”
Financing at this stage of development has historically been challenging for traditional lenders and is often fulfilled by high-rate mezzanine debt providers, equity investors or self-funded. This is difficult financing for developers to access and most needed for the creation or preservation of workforce and affordable housing in Culleywood’s service area, with few mezzanine funds regionally present and little-to-no organized equity funds serving the housing sector locally.
It is well documented that Small to Medium Sized Enterprises form a crucial part of the strength of local and regional economies. Limited access to finance for these SMEs is commonly seen as their main barrier to growth and development. The lack of financing options is particularly problematic for SMEs developing workforce and affordable housing in Culleywood’s service area in the so- called “missing middle” – businesses that are too big for micro finance and informal investors, but that are too small or lack the personal balance sheet for private equity or traditional banks. Culleywood provides tailored financial products to these businesses that are flexible, affordable and impact-focused.
Community Development
MuniStrategies CDE
MuniStrategies was formed in 2006 with a single goal – to help improve and strengthen the communities in the southeast through providing innovative financing to projects in advanced manufacturing, agri-business, healthcare and community workforce development. Since then, MuniStrategies has received and deployed allocations of New Markets Tax Credits from the CDFI Fund totaling $318,000,000 and resulting in the creation of over 7,000 jobs. In the spring of 2022, Culleywood Capital acquired a controlling interest in MuniStrategies.
For more information:
jyork@culleywoodcapital.com
Equitable housing is key to community renewal.
Housing is key to reducing intergenerational poverty and increasing economic mobility and opportunity. Research shows that increasing access to affordable housing is the most cost-effective strategy for reducing childhood poverty and increasing economic mobility in the United States. The steadily rising demand for rental properties over the past decade (and decrease in homeownership rates) has reduced vacancy rates to historic lows, fueling a rapid increase in rental market prices that has outpaced household incomes for many families. This imbalance is contributing to high rates of “rent burdened” households, especially in the Greater Mississippi Delta region where poverty rates are the highest in the country.
Investing in the Greater Mississippi Delta.
The Greater MS Delta (MS, AR, LA, TN) represents states with the highest poverty rates, lowest median incomes, lowest educational attainment levels, lowest health outcomes and highest proportion of single-parent households in the country. Affordable housing is key to addressing all of these disparities that are endemic to our Target Market. It is estimated by the National Low-Income Housing Coalition that Culleywood’s Target Market is in need of more than 300,000 additional rental homes affordable and available for extremely low-income renters alone, yet there are less than three CDFI Loan Funds servicing Culleywood’s Target Market that even provide pre-development loans for affordable housing developers to fulfill this demand.
