Condo buyers may soon find it difficult to secure financing, because of new regulations. Above: A sand sculpture seen near the 12-story oceanfront condo, Champlain Towers South, seven days after the building collapsed. The building has since been demolished and the site cleared. Pedro Portal [email protected] In most places, condominium and cooperative apartments are considered among the most affordable ownership options. But if they haven’t already, buyers in some buildings may soon be finding it difficult to secure financing because of new rules regarding deferred maintenance, structural issues and underfunded reserve accounts.
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A sand sculpture seen near the 12-story oceanfront condo, Champlain Towers South, seven days after the building collapsed. The building has since been demolished and the site cleared. |
But some condo
association boards and property management companies are
balking, calling the rules too onerous. On the advice of
counsel, some have decided not to answer the questions at
all — in effect, throwing in the towel on Fannie-Freddie
financing.
Adams Stirling, one of the largest law firms in California
dealing with common interest subdivisions, is advising its
roughly 2,000 clients to answer the “draconian” questions as
best they can — but with an addendum that they are doing so
to the best of their ability, “with no guarantee.” “We’re
getting hundreds of calls a day from boards, asking ‘What do
we do?’” partner Adrian Adams told me. “It’s not like
normal, where you can answer and move on. And it’s impacting
everybody. It’s going to force people to look to alternative
forms of financing,” which are “not nearly as plentiful.”
In the CAI survey, nearly 9 out of 10 condo management
outfits fear exposure to liability for answering some
questions, and a quarter said buyers have been denied
funding because the questions have gone unanswered. Nearly
half said lender approval has been delayed. “They understand
the intent,” the CAI’s Dawn Bauman told me. “But some
questions are not yes-or-no questions, and condo boards
usually don’t have that kind of expertise. They are willing
to provide the documentation, but they say lenders should
make the decisions.”
Even though the rules are said to be temporary, the CAI has
called on Fannie and Freddie to delay their implementation
for a year, saying they caught many stakeholders “by
surprise.” Then there’s the issue of who is going to pay for
all the documentation now required to appease lenders and
investors. The extra paperwork is not normally covered in
condo board budgets. And the law in many places only
requires sellers to disclose specific information regarding
their owners association, including all official documents,
covenants and restrictions and a statement of dues and
assessments. Typically, condo associations charge to produce
these docs, and it isn’t cheap — between $200 and $500, in
most places.
But in Chicago, where there are “hundreds of old buildings
that are falling apart,” said Don DeBat, the former real
estate editor of the Chicago Sun-Times, some boards charge
as much as $1,200. It’s usually the buyer who pays, adding
just one more expense to an already burdensome list of
closing costs. And if boards are required to produce
minutes, engineering reports and so on, the fee is likely to
jump significantly. “That’s the elephant in the room,” said
DeBat.
Meanwhile, as of March 1, Fannie Mae has placed 1,034
properties on its “unavailable” list of projects for which
it will not backstop buyers. About 40% of those are in
Florida alone. Granted, some were on the list prior to the
new rules.
“It’s doubtful the company has reviewed that many in just
two months,” says Orest Tomaselli, the head of project
reviews at CondoTek, a company that helps lenders with
documentation requirements. Granted, too, some are listed as
ineligible for other reasons, such as being identified as a
condo-hotel or because a single entity owns too many units.
But the Peppermill at Kendale Lakes West property in Miami
is verboten because of “possible structural damage to
balconies.”
And 111 East Chestnut in Chicago is out because it sits on a
parking garage where excessive concrete degradation called
“spalling” has been spotted. Tomaselli, whose staff reviews
more than 2,000 properties a month, suspects that perhaps as
many as 10% of all condominium buildings are
“unwarrantable,” meaning they are not eligible for GSE
funding. Eventually, he figures, they will make it onto
Fannie’s “Do Not Buy” list.
He says maybe 80% to 90% of those need some work but will be
cleared in due time. But, he warns, the remaining 10% are
“devastatingly behind the eight ball.”
At one Manhattan condo he describes as “eerily reminiscent
of Surfside,” the board chose to cover exposed rebar and
cracking cement with steel plates rather than deal with the
problems directly. As Tomaselli sees it, the properties that
find the new rules too ruthless are the ones that have
failed to address structural issues and reserve accounts.
“You have to pay attention to this stuff,” he said. “After
all, what’s the price of a life?”