Fort Lauderdale Has Two Condo Markets Right Now. Only One of Them Is Financeable.

Here's a number that stopped me cold this month.

In Fort Lauderdale, single-family homes are sitting at roughly 4.8 months of supply. Condos? About twelve.

That's not one market running slow. That's two completely different markets wearing the same zip code.

And if you're shopping down there right now, you've probably already noticed the symptom without knowing the cause. There's a unit — good building, decent view, priced way under everything around it — and it just sits. Nobody's touching it. It feels like you found something everybody else missed.

You didn't. The market found it first.

Here's what changed. Florida now requires milestone structural inspections on condo buildings three stories and up — at 30 years old, or 25 if you're within three miles of the coast. On top of that, associations have to actually fund their structural reserves. They can't vote to waive it anymore the way they did for years.

So a bunch of buildings that had been kicking the can finally opened the envelope. Some of them got good news. Some of them got assessments that genuinely hurt.

And here's the part almost nobody outside the lending world sees coming: roughly 5,000 Florida condo projects have landed on Fannie Mae's unavailable list. Meaning conventional financing on a unit in that building is off the table. Not because of your credit. Not because of your income. Because of the building.

You can be a perfect borrower and still get a no.

Now — I don't want to be the guy who tells you Fort Lauderdale condos are a disaster, because that's just not true. Plenty of associations did the inspection, funded the reserves, and came out the other side clean. Those buildings are commanding a premium right now, and they've earned it. What's really happening is a two-tier market: buildings that dealt with it, and buildings that haven't yet. Wonderful for some, not right for everybody.

The trick is knowing which tier you're standing in before you fall in love with the unit.

So ask early, and ask the association, not the listing:

Has the milestone inspection been done? What did it say?

Is there a completed structural integrity reserve study?

Are reserves actually funded, or is there a plan to fund them?

Any special assessment pending, voted, or being whispered about?

Is the project warrantable right now?

Get those answers before the inspection period, not during it. We've watched deals die at the finish line over a reserve study nobody thought to read — and the buyer had done absolutely nothing wrong.

And if a building comes back unwarrantable, that's not automatically a dead deal either. There are portfolio options for exactly this situation. It's just a different conversation, and it's a much better one to have on the front end than three days before closing.

If you're looking down there and want somebody to pressure-test a building before you write the offer, call the office — 352-282-3020. Takes a few minutes and it's free.

Has anybody here shopped a Fort Lauderdale condo this year and had the building be the dealbreaker instead of the unit? I'd honestly like to know how often that's happening out there right now.