The Community Development department at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis recently launched the Community Investment Explorer. The tool has data from more than 500,000 community development transactions, going as far back as 1987, that are sortable by year, investment purpose and state or metropolitan area.
This new tool aggregates transaction-level data from three programs that drive investment into low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities—the Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) program, New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program and Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program. Collectively, these initiatives are responsible for several billion dollars of investment into LMI communities each year. The investments support a range of activities, from affordable housing to commercial real estate development, consumer and business lending, and more.
The Community Investment Explorer (CIE) was built to show geographic comparisons and trends over time in a way that is easily customizable. For example, some users will view the full range of investment activity; others, only business and commercial real estate loans. Some users will be interested in LIHTC data only related to developments that are new construction; others will want to see the entire range of construction types.
Data can be customized for time (only one or two particular years or all available years) and geography (e.g., state-level comparisons, MSA comparisons, non-MSA comparisons). Within each geography type, you may select as many or as few locations to analyze as you wish.