Financing a Florida Condo in 2026

The thing nobody tells condo buyers

When you buy a condo, the lender underwrites two things: you, and the association.

You can have excellent income, excellent credit, and a large down payment, and still not be able to finance a particular unit — because of the building's finances, its insurance, its litigation, or its inspection status. This surprises people badly, usually in week three.

It is not personal and it is not fixable by shopping harder on your side of the file. It is a property question.

What changed in Florida

After Surfside, Florida overhauled what older multi-story condo buildings are required to do. In broad strokes:

• Buildings past a certain age have to undergo a structural milestone inspection, with the age threshold lower for buildings near the coast.
• Associations have to commission a structural integrity reserve study covering major components — roof, structure, waterproofing, plumbing, electrical, and more.
• Associations are required to actually fund reserves for those components, rather than voting each year to waive them, which was common practice for decades.

The exact thresholds and deadlines have been amended more than once, so confirm current requirements for a specific building with the association and a Florida real estate attorney rather than relying on a summary.

The financing consequence is what matters here: buildings that deferred maintenance for years are now facing the bill, and that bill shows up as special assessments, sharply higher dues, or both. Which in turn affects whether the unit is financeable and what you can afford.

What the questionnaire asks

Your lender sends the association a condo questionnaire. The answers largely determine whether a conventional loan works. The items that most often cause problems:

Reserves and deferred maintenance. Whether the association funds reserves adequately, and whether the reserve study or inspection identified structural issues that have not been addressed. Unaddressed structural findings are the current number one deal-killer.

Special assessments. Whether one is in place, pending, or being discussed. An assessment that has been voted on is different from one that is rumored, and both matter.

Litigation. Certain kinds — particularly structural, safety, or construction-defect litigation — can make a building ineligible for conventional financing entirely.

Owner-occupancy and investor concentration. How much of the building is renters, and whether any single entity owns too large a share.

Delinquency. What proportion of owners are behind on dues.

Master insurance. Whether coverage meets requirements, including wind and flood where applicable. In Florida this has become a genuine constraint on its own.

Commercial space. Buildings with a large share of commercial square footage have their own rules.

Approved, non-warrantable, and unavailable

Roughly three outcomes:

The building is fine. Conventional financing works normally. FHA and VA maintain their own approved condo lists, which are separate and narrower.

The building is non-warrantable. It fails one or more agency requirements. Conventional agency financing is out, but non-warrantable condo programs exist through portfolio lenders. Different documentation, different terms, and fewer lenders in the room — but it is financeable.

The building has an unresolved structural finding. This is currently the hardest case. Until the association addresses it or produces the required documentation, most financing paths are closed regardless of who the borrower is.

Knowing which of the three you are in should happen in week one, not week four.

What to ask for before you write the offer

Ask your agent to request, from the seller or the association:

• The most recent milestone inspection report, if the building is old enough to require one
• The structural integrity reserve study
• The last two years of financial statements and the current budget
• Board meeting minutes for the past year — this is where a coming assessment is discussed long before it is voted
• Any special assessment documentation, current or proposed
• The master insurance declarations page
• Whether there is pending litigation

The minutes are the underrated one. An assessment being debated in minutes is invisible on a questionnaire that asks only about approved assessments.

If an assessment is coming

Two live questions: who pays it, and how does it affect the loan.

Who pays is negotiable in the contract — it is common for a voted assessment to be allocated between buyer and seller, and it is worth negotiating deliberately rather than by default.

How it affects the loan depends on structure. An assessment paid in a lump sum at closing is treated differently from one financed by the association and added to monthly dues, because dues are part of your housing obligation for underwriting.

The honest position

Florida condos are not a bad idea. They are a category where the property diligence is genuinely heavier than a single-family home, and where the questions are answerable if you ask them in the right order and early enough.

What does not work is treating a condo purchase like a house purchase and discovering the building's finances in the third week of a thirty-day contract.

If you are looking at a specific building, send me the address at offer stage. The questionnaire and the minutes tell the story quickly, and it is far better to know in week one.