Condo buyers who need a mortgage in Aventura and Sunny Isles Beach face a harder path after Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac eliminated streamlined approval processes for conventional condo loans, effective Aug. 4.

The new rules, reported by The Real Deal, require every conventional condo mortgage to go through a full financial review of the building's association. The only exception: projects of 10 units or fewer. Roughly 40% of condo mortgage purchases nationally had relied on the faster, now-retired pathway, according to CNBC reporting.

In a market where more than 1,000 condos are listed for sale in Sunny Isles Beach alone and homes sit on the market a median of 130 to 191 days, according to local market data, the added paperwork and processing time could further slow closings and shrink the pool of qualified buyers.

What changed

Fannie Mae retired both its Limited Review process and its Project Eligibility Review Service for new Florida condo projects. Freddie Mac retired its Streamlined Review. Now lenders must conduct a full dive into a condo association's finances before approving a loan.

A second change hits older buildings directly. For Florida condos three stories or higher and at least 25 to 30 years old, depending on municipality and coastal proximity, reserves must meet a minimum of 15% of the annual budgeted assessment income. That's up from 10%. Lenders must comply with the higher reserve floor for loan applications beginning Jan. 4, 2027.

Fannie Mae also barred lenders from using a "baseline funding method" that historically allowed a building's reserve cash balance to approach zero.

"It will make the process take much longer and will result in a lot of disqualifying applications," Max Slyusarchuk, CEO of Fort Lauderdale-based AD Mortgage, told CNBC.

Local stakes

The rule change lands in a corridor already under financial pressure. Florida's post-Surfside condo safety laws require Aventura buildings to undergo structural recertification 25 years after construction, down from 40 years under the old law. More than 2,500 condo and cooperative buildings statewide were flagged for Phase Two milestone inspections in 2024 and 2025, with 23 buildings in Miami-Dade County deemed unsafe or uninhabitable in 2025, according to Newsweek reporting on a state legislative review.

Buildings that can't meet the 15% reserve threshold risk losing access to conventional financing entirely. Buyers in those buildings would need portfolio loans, which often carry higher down payments and interest rates, or pay cash.

Cash already dominates.

In 2025, 76% of condo and townhome sales in the broader Miami vacation-home market were all-cash, according to Miami Realtors. That insulates many transactions from the new rules but widens the gap for financed buyers competing in the same buildings.

Dawn Bauman, CEO of the Community Associations Institute, warned that many boards are unprepared. "There will be buildings that don't know about that change, so they can't comply with it," she said. Her organization sent a letter to the Federal Housing Finance Agency on July 9 requesting a one-year delay on the 15% reserve requirement.

Relief options

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava announced on June 22 that the county relaunched its Condominium Special Assessment Loan Program with $15 million available in zero-interest loans of up to $50,000 per unit for required building repairs.

Aventura has positioned itself as proactive on condo oversight. The city was the first in Florida to require buildings to submit engineering reports publicly, and the City Commission hosted a Condominium Legislative Update in February featuring state Sens. Jason Pizzo and Jennifer Bradley and Department of Business and Professional Regulation Secretary Melanie Griffin.

Once a building passes its initial full review under the new rules, lenders generally won't have to repeat it for every subsequent mortgage in that project, according to a Mortgage Bankers Association spokesperson. But the first review adds time and documentation that associations must prepare.

Aventura and Sunny Isles Beach city officials were not contacted for comment on the rule change. No local commission meetings are currently scheduled to address it.