Brevard County · Space Coast · Condominiums

Condo Financing in Brevard County: The Building Gets Reviewed Too

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Buy a condominium on the Space Coast and two things go under review at once: you, and the building. A file that looks straightforward on a house in Suntree can stall on a beachside condo over the association's budget, its rental mix, its insurance, or an inspection nobody has done. None of that is about your credit, and none of it shows up in a prequalification.

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Two Reviews Running at Once

On a house, the review is mostly about you and what the property appraises for. On a condominium a second review runs alongside it.

Fannie Mae's project standards treat the condition and finances of a project as a risk separate from the credit risk an individual borrower presents. The building is assessed on its own account, which is why a project problem is generally not something a borrower can cure. Clean credit does not change the association's reserves, its rental share, its litigation, or an inspection that has not been done.

FHA and VA run their own condominium approval processes, separate from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and standing under one program does not determine standing under another. Ask about more than one loan type.

"Warrantable" Is Shorthand. The Agencies Say Eligible.

"Warrantable" is industry shorthand, not agency terminology. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac use eligible and ineligible project, decided through a project review the lender performs, not us.

Ineligible is not the same as unfinanceable. It means the project misses one or more agency standards, so a loan on it cannot be sold to those agencies in the usual way. Where it can be financed at all, that generally runs through a narrower set of lenders, often ones that keep loans on their own books and write their own building rules.

The label describes the building, not you, and it is not permanent. Projects move as budgets, rental mix, litigation and inspection status change. So do the standards: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac revise their project requirements periodically, which is why a building a friend financed two years ago is worth rechecking.

What the Project Review Actually Looks At

Most of this arrives on a condo questionnaire the lender sends to the association or its manager, along with the budget, reserve study and insurance certificates. The association or its manager completes it, not you, and their written answers are what the lender works from. The thresholds are set by the agencies and applied by the lender, not by us:

Project type and status, ownership and occupancy mix, and single-entity ownership.

Association finances: the budget, the share allocated to replacement reserves, owners behind on assessments, and how much of the project is commercial.

Special assessments, and what they pay for. Approved, pending, and discussed but never voted on are three different answers.

Litigation, and what kind. Fannie Mae's ineligible criteria name litigation involving safety, structural soundness, habitability or functional use. A minor claim the association's insurer is handling is a different question, and the lender decides how a case reads.

Insurance, including the master policy's wind coverage and deductible structure. In our experience this is a frequent sticking point for Florida condo buyers.

How the building operates. Nightly or weekly stays with hotel-like services can push a project toward condotel treatment, and hotel-style operation appears on the ineligible list.

What Changed After Surfside

The June 2021 collapse of Champlain Towers South changed condominium financing in Florida. In the months that followed, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac each issued new project requirements covering significant deferred maintenance, unsafe conditions and special assessments. The Florida Legislature enacted the milestone inspection and structural integrity reserve study requirements in 2022, and both sets of rules have been amended several times since.

A milestone inspection is a structural inspection of a building's load-bearing elements by a Florida-licensed architect or engineer. A structural integrity reserve study, or SIRS, is an inspection-based study of the major components an association has to reserve for. Both are scoped by building height, the milestone inspection also by age, and neither reaches every condominium. The FAQs below have the scope, timing and exemptions as we understand them. That is a general description of two statutes, not legal advice: the association's documents and adopted budget, and your attorney, are where to confirm what applies. What it means for a loan file:

A required inspection or study that has not been done leaves the project review with nothing to read, and in our experience that slows a file down or stops it.

Fannie Mae treats a project as ineligible where a structural or mechanical inspection report from the past three years shows unaddressed critical repairs, until those repairs are completed and documented. Freddie Mac published parallel requirements. Because many conventional loans are written to those two agencies' standards, an open critical-repair finding can hold up financing until the association resolves it. A phase two milestone inspection is not automatically a critical-repair finding, though, and we cannot say in advance how a lender will read a report.

Repairs and reserve funding come out of the association's budget, so dues in some buildings have moved. Lenders generally count association dues as part of your monthly housing expense, so a change there can move the numbers on your file even though your income has not.

Why This Is a Brevard Question

Much of the beachside inventory here is not new. What is for sale from Cape Canaveral down through Satellite Beach, Indialantic and Melbourne Beach has mostly stood decades of hurricane seasons within sight of salt water. The milestone rule turns on height and age; the reserve study turns on height alone. The earlier milestone trigger is a local determination tied to circumstances such as proximity to salt water. Older beachside buildings are likeliest to be in scope.

Rental rules change block to block. Buildings in Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral that allow short stays often carry a higher share of units held as rentals, and where hotel-like services are attached that can pull a project toward condotel treatment. A few miles south, buildings with long minimum lease terms review differently.

Not every condo here is a beachside tower. Plenty of what is legally a condominium in Viera, Suntree and West Melbourne is a townhouse or a site condo well under the height at which either requirement is triggered. Whether a specific building is in scope is a question for the association's documents and your attorney, not for a web page. Either way the project review still happens; there is just less to read.

What a Broker Can Do on a Condo, and What We Cannot

Homesite Mortgage is a broker. We do not lend our own money, and we do not approve, underwrite or fund loans. You fill out one application with us and we shop your file across multiple lenders.

That matters more on a condo than on a house, because lenders and loan programs do not all review projects the same way: the rental share one accepts, how another treats an assessment discussed but not voted on, whether a third has a program for projects outside agency standards. When one lender's rules do not fit a building, we take the file to a different set of rules rather than have you start over.

A loan on a project outside agency standards is not sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. It is generally kept by the lender or bought by a private investor, and the terms are set by that lender rather than by agency standards, so they vary by lender and by file. We will not put figures on a web page. We put your terms in writing after we have seen your file and the project documents.

Sometimes the honest answer is that no lender we work with will take a building right now. We would rather tell you that in the first week than the fifth.

What to Ask Before You Write the Offer

Two of these you can ask for as a matter of Florida law: a seller of a condominium unit is required to give a prospective buyer the inspector-prepared summary of the milestone inspection report, where one applies, and the association's most recent structural integrity reserve study, or a statement that none has been completed. "None completed" is itself worth knowing before you go under contract, so ask early. Again, general description, not legal advice. The listing agent or management company can often answer the rest quickly. Send us what comes back, with the building name.

Building name and address, year built, habitable stories, number of units.

Is a milestone inspection required here, has it been done, and was phase two required?

Has a structural integrity reserve study been completed, and can you see it?

Is the association funding reserves for the components that study covers?

Any special assessment approved, pending, or under discussion, and what for?

Any litigation involving the association, and what kind?

Share of units rented, minimum lease term, rental cap, single-owner block.

Does the master policy include wind coverage, and how is the deductible structured?

Common Questions

Questions We Get Asked

Is a non-warrantable condo a dealbreaker?

Not necessarily, but it narrows the field. Ineligible, which is the agencies' own word, means the project misses one or more of their project standards, so the loan cannot be sold to them in the usual way. Some lenders keep those loans on their own books and set their own rules about buildings, and that is generally where a file like this has to go. Generally there are fewer lenders to choose from, and each one sets its own terms rather than following agency standards. Whether you intend to live in the unit or rent it changes the picture again, because occupancy affects which standards apply and how the building's rental share is read. Tell us your actual plan at the start. We put your figures in writing after we have reviewed your file and the project documents, not before.

Which Florida buildings need a milestone inspection, and when?

A milestone inspection is a structural inspection performed by a Florida-licensed architect or engineer on the load-bearing elements and primary structural members and systems of a building. Florida law applies it to a building three habitable stories or more in height that is subject, in whole or in part, to the residential condominium form of ownership under chapter 718 or the residential cooperative form under chapter 719. It is due by December 31 of the year the building reaches 30 years of age, measured from the certificate of occupancy date, and every 10 years after that. A local enforcement agency may determine that local circumstances, including proximity to salt water, require it at 25 years instead — which is why it is worth asking specifically on a beachside building. The statute also exempts certain small dwellings of three or fewer habitable stories above ground, so not every three-story building is in scope. Phase one is a visual, qualitative assessment; if the inspector finds no substantial structural deterioration, phase two is not required. That is a general description of the statute, not legal advice. Confirm what applies to a specific building with the association and your attorney.

What is a SIRS, and why does a lender care about it?

A structural integrity reserve study is an inspection-based study of a condominium building's major components that estimates replacement cost and sets what the association has to reserve for them. Florida law requires a residential condominium association to have one completed for each building on the property that is three habitable stories or higher, and repeated at least every 10 years. It does not reach every condominium: buildings under three habitable stories are outside it, the statute exempts certain small dwellings of three or fewer habitable stories above ground, and there is no building-age threshold. Associations that existed on or before July 1, 2022 were given a first-study deadline of December 31, 2025, and later amendments added a limited extension in some circumstances. That deadline has been moved before, so the association's own records and adopted budget are where to confirm where a specific building stands. A lender cares because the project review reads the association's finances, and the study is the clearest evidence of what a building will need and whether it is funded. General information about the statute, not legal advice — the association is where to confirm the current requirement for a specific building.

Can an association still vote to waive its reserves?

Far less than it once could. For budgets adopted on or after December 31, 2024, members of a unit-owner-controlled association that must obtain a SIRS generally may not vote to provide no reserves, or less than the required reserves, for the components that study covers. Some flexibility remains. The statute allows those reserves to be funded in more than one way — including regular or special assessments and, subject to a vote of the membership, a line of credit or a loan — and, for budgets adopted through 2028, an association that completed a milestone inspection within the previous two calendar years may vote to pause or reduce those contributions for no more than two consecutive annual budgets in order to fund the repairs the inspection recommends. Blanket waivers of the older kind are largely gone. This law has been amended more than once, though, and the association's own adopted budget is where to confirm what currently applies. That is a general description, not legal advice.

Can you tell me whether a specific Cocoa Beach or Indialantic building is financeable before I make an offer?

We can usually give you a useful read quickly. The building name, address, age, number of habitable stories and what the listing says about rentals tell us a lot. What we cannot do is promise. A firmer answer needs the association's completed questionnaire, budget, reserve study and insurance certificate, and those generally arrive after you are under contract. Until those documents are in hand, any read on a building — ours included — is preliminary. Ask early anyway, and build the timing into your financing contingency: in our experience some management companies return the questionnaire in days, others take weeks, and some charge a fee to complete it.

The building has a special assessment coming. Can I still get a loan?

A pending assessment is not automatically disqualifying, but it has to be disclosed and the review will want the details: what it is for, whether it has been approved or only discussed, the full scope, and whether you or the seller will pay it. Special assessments and what they are paying for are part of the agencies' project criteria, so an assessment tied to planned, budgeted work is a different conversation from one tied to a structural repair finding. The worst version is discovering it late, when it changes the deal and the underwriting at the same time. Ask about it before the offer, including whether it has only been raised at meetings and never voted on.

My lender said no on this condo. Does that mean nobody will lend on it?

Not necessarily. It means that lender's project rules did not fit that building. Lenders draw those lines differently from each other, and some run programs specifically for projects that do not meet agency standards, so a second opinion is worth having. Finding which lender's rules fit a given building is the job of a broker. It does not always work — some buildings genuinely have no financing market at the moment — but one decline is not a verdict on the building. Send us the decline reason if you have it in writing; it usually tells us which criterion the project missed, which is where a second look starts.

Send us the building name and address before you write the offer. Call 321-751-4403 or start a prequalification — no hard credit pull to begin — and we will tell you plainly what we can see and what we cannot. Homesite Mortgage Corporation is a licensed Florida mortgage broker, NMLS #353790, originating loans in Florida only. This page is general information about how condominium projects are reviewed. It is not legal advice, not an offer of credit and not a commitment to lend. All loans are subject to credit approval and underwriting.

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