A beloved children’s book character now helps finance affordable homes throughout the U.S.
“I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there’s gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning, I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running, and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.”*
So begin the struggles of Alexander in Judith Viorst’s classic children’s book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, a boy who dreams of escaping — to Australia. What may surprise you is that Alexander was inspired by a very real boy, Alex Viorst, now executive director of agency lending for PGIM Real Estate, based out of Arlington, Virginia.
“One lesson I learned from the book is — some days are tough and some days are great. You can stomp your feet and gripe, but try to wake up with a better attitude tomorrow,” he says. “Don’t pretend like it doesn’t bother you, but focus on the good, isolate what’s frustrating you and move on.”
Today, Viorst is responsible for direct real estate loan originations that fund affordable housing throughout the United States. Since 2001, PGIM Real Estate has worked with its capital partners, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to provide more than $22 billion in affordable and mission-driven financing to clients and has preserved more than a quarter-million affordable housing units.
So, what makes a wonderful, delightful, not bad, very good day for Alex? Read our interview below:
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How true to life was your mom’s book?
She tells me I was a pain in the butt, but I don’t think I was any more so than my two brothers. I am the youngest, so maybe I got myself into more trouble. I think Alex in the book is a conglomeration of all three of us, plus my mom’s artistic license to make people laugh.
In the book, Alex is focused on his own struggles, but your job helps others who are struggling.
My first job was in the community development lending group of a bank in Chicago. I sought the job out. It’s all I wanted to do. For me, it satisfied a requirement for a long-term job that I felt had to be meaningful and had to be beneficial to someone other than just myself.
What is our affordable lending business? What do you do?
We have strong relationships with a network of “borrowers” — real estate owners and developers — that are focused on building or acquiring affordable housing in the U.S. The way it usually works is, a developer identifies a good location for affordable housing, or finds an existing affordable building in serious need of rehabilitation. They’ll reach out to us for a letter of intent to show we’re interested in financing the project. If we are interested, we send them the letter and then they apply for various government subsidies to make the deal work. Assuming the developer receives the subsidies, that’s our window to win their deal. We’ll add the numbers up and make a debt proposal. If they like what we structured, we’ll then go to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD or our other capital partners with a summary of the deal and work with them to obtain a quote. If the client likes the terms, we’re off to the races. We also refinance — when you’re working on a deal, you receive a list of other real estate the borrower owns and when those loans are maturing, so you can follow up and approach them about refinancing opportunities.
How do clients and property owners benefit from these affordable housing deals?
In the affordable housing space, you earn a fee for developing the property, and then you have cash flow from the rent payments. Run the properties well, and there will be excess cash flow that’ll accrue to the company’s bottom line. With Covid and eviction moratoriums, there were a few lumpy years in certain states where some tenants withheld rent payments, but overall, these properties performed better than market-rate properties. A lot of what we do is project-based Section 8, so tenants pay 30% of their income toward rent, and then HUD pays the difference. That’s very predictable income.
How do we stand out against competitors?
The folks on our team and I have been in this space for 30-plus years. We know how to navigate the agencies and advocate for a deal. We’ve got a lot of long-standing relationships in the industry, and that speaks to our reliability, predictability, problem-solving, transparency, and ability to get stuff done. When things get stuck, we know who to talk with to get things unstuck. I think that’s been invaluable in terms of creating client relationships and maintaining those relationships over the years.
What was the biggest win for your team last year? What did it mean for the community and for us?
The first deal we closed was for 300+ units of Section 8 housing in Camden, New Jersey. The place had been through hard times. One of our clients is extremely experienced turning around tough projects, and they wanted to buy it. It was a very complicated deal. Interest rates started going up. The buyer needed concessions from the seller. It had these new New Jersey state tax credits that not a lot of people have used before. It took several back-and-forths and PowerPoint presentations to get HUD on board, and a handful of other partners to make it happen. The client is midway through the renovation now, spending more than $100,000/unit in rehab, doing the things that should have been done over the last 30 years—in-unit and common area upgrades, a redesign of the building’s exterior, improved accessibility, and significant systems replacements. For the tenants, this is going to be a game changer. It took a lot of work, but this is the reason you do these deals: we really are making a difference.
In your mom’s book, you had a bad day. What’s a good day for you look like?
The other day, I woke up, checked my email, and HUD had approved a waiver for a workforce housing deal in Florida that we had been trying to get approval on for some time. That was fantastic. That same day I got on the train, a client of mine called. We had been chasing a couple of deals with them, and he shared that he was giving us one of those deals. That was a double great day.
Do you have kids of your own? What do they think of you being a children’s book character?
Our youngest just started at University of Oregon. We have one daughter who graduated Oregon and is working for Deloitte Consulting in Portland. My middle kid is a sophomore at New York University. I saw him the other night after we went to a closing dinner in the city. For years, they just assumed that everybody had a grandmother who wrote a book about their father. They didn’t know that it was something unusual, until people would say, “Hang on, that’s your dad?” My mom at 93 is still alive, still writing, still very close with my kids. They love how prolific she is. I’m just sort of an afterthought.
Did you ever get to Australia?
Now that we’re empty nesters, it’s on the to-do list!
*Source: Viorst, Judith, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (1987, 2nd ed.), Atheneum Books for Young Readers.
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© 2025 PGIM is the primary asset management business of Prudential Financial, Inc. (PFI). The brand "PGIM Real Estate" encompasses both (1) a fund advisory business headquartered in Newark, New Jersey, which operates as a business unit of PGIM Inc., an SEC-registered investment adviser organized as a New Jersey corporation ("PGIM"), under the name "PGIM Real Estate", and (2) a commercial real estate debt origination and advisory platform which operates through a separate, affiliated legal entity known as PGIM Real Estate Finance, LLC ("PGIM REF"), a Delaware limited liability company. Several officers of PGIM REF are also associated with PGIM Inc., and, from time-to-time, may provide services to PGIM Real Estate in their capacities as officers of PGIM that are separate and distinct from the services they provide as officers of PGIM REF. Prudential, Pramerica, PGIM, their respective logos as well as the Rock symbol are service marks of PFI and its related entities, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. PFI of the United States is not affiliated in any manner with Prudential plc, incorporated in the United Kingdom or with Prudential Assurance Company, a subsidiary of M&G plc, incorporated in the United Kingdom.
The views expressed in this presentation are of PGIM Real Estate as of 1/15/25 and may not be reflective of their current opinions and are subject to change without notice. Neither the information contained herein nor any opinion expressed shall be construed to constitute investment advice or as an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any securities mentioned herein. Any projections or forecasts presented herein are subject to change.
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