Earn Your Leisure How to Scale Affordable Housing Development as a Small Team
Apr 12, 2026
Brandon Rule, a community developer leading affordable and mixed-use projects in Wisconsin and Birmingham and winner of a $50M federal grant, breaks down going independent and scaling with a lean team. He discusses liquidity benchmarks for developers, running multiple phased builds solo, winning large federal grants, and how city relationships unlock major opportunities.
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Hit AHEC Liquidity To Lead Tax Credit Deals
- Do meet the AHEC liquidity benchmark before leading tax-credit affordable developments.
- Brandon Rule says $1M cash and $5M net worth is the industry standard to be accepted as the developer by tax credit equity investors.
Scaling From Staff Of One To A Small Team
- Anecdote of scaling solo before hiring staff: Brandon ran development as a staff-of-one for years.
- He handled community meetings, financial models, and construction oversight until hiring his first full-time employee recently.
Use Phased Funding To Match Small Team Capacity
- Plan capacity over time by breaking large awards into phased deals so a small team can execute.
- Brandon used a $50M federal grant split into seven deals to schedule roughly one deal per year and two deals a year in later phases.