Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac retired their short-form project reviews. A full review is now the default, and the paperwork lands on the association.
Both agencies announced it on 18 March 2026 and both set the same trigger: the loan application date.
A lender could take an attached unit in an established project through a short-form review — Fannie Mae called it Limited Review, Freddie Mac called it Streamlined Review — and skip the analysis of the association in exchange for lower leverage.
For applications dated on or after 3 August 2026, that path is closed. An established project is reviewed in full, or it qualifies for one of the small-project waivers. There is no grandfathering: an unexpired review completed earlier does not carry a later application.
Trade commentary often says Freddie Mac “retired limited review”. It did not have one. Limited Review was Fannie Mae’s term; Freddie Mac’s was Streamlined Review. The date and the effect are the same.
Florida is usually the state that gets the extra restriction. This time several of them came off.
The questionnaire itself is optional. The information behind it is not, and “unknown” is not an answer a file can close on.
A lender who learns of significant deferred maintenance or major litigation has to report it to Fannie Mae within five business days. And if the association or its manager will not provide the inspection reports or the assessment detail, the loan cannot be sold — a board that does not answer has made a financing decision for its owners.
These are the named conditions. Routine repairs are expressly not among them — the line is whether delay would cause a critical element or system to fail.
Material deficiencies that could cause a critical element or system to fail within a year — and mould, water intrusion or damage that is not isolated to one or a few units.
Failing a jurisdictional mandatory structural inspection makes a project ineligible. Municipal inspections are expressly not excluded.
There is no workaround. The process has to be finished, with evidence the project passed — typically a letter from the local jurisdiction.
A partial or total evacuation order for an unsafe condition, until the condition is remediated and the building is deemed safe for occupancy.
More than fifteen per cent of units sixty or more days past due on common expense assessments, and separately on each special assessment.
Along with single-entity ownership over the limit, commercial space above thirty-five per cent, and termination or deconversion proceedings.
The components named in the guidance read like a Florida coastal mid-rise: sea walls, elevators, waterproofing, stairwells, balconies, foundations and electrical systems.
Neither agency requires that an inspection be performed. But once one exists and was completed within the past three years, the lender must obtain and review it — so a Florida milestone inspection, once done, becomes a lending document whether or not anyone intended it to be.
Failing a jurisdictional mandatory inspection is itself a named ineligibility trigger. And a building the jurisdiction has rated safe is still ineligible if critical repairs remain outstanding.
No Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac document names Florida’s milestone inspection statute or the Structural Integrity Reserve Study. We will not tell a board that a SIRS satisfies the agencies’ reserve-study content requirements, because no agency has said so. What the guides do say is that a reserve study must meet or exceed the applicable state statute — which is a question to put to the lender and the association’s counsel for a specific building.
| Date | Status | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| 18 March 2026 | Announced | Fannie Mae LL-2026-03 and Freddie Mac Bulletin 2026-C, issued the same day and coordinated with FHFA. Several items — the small-project waivers, the Florida PERS retirement — were available to lenders immediately. |
| 3 August 2026 | In force | Fannie Mae's Limited Review and Freddie Mac's Streamlined Review both end, for loan applications dated on or after this day. The tightened reserve-study rules start on the same trigger. |
| 5 August 2026 | Written in | Fannie Mae folds the changes into the Selling Guide. The phrase “Limited Review” no longer appears in it. |
| 4 January 2027 | Still ahead | The minimum replacement reserve allocation rises from ten per cent to fifteen per cent of annual budgeted assessment income, at both agencies. Until then the floor is ten per cent. |
The fifteen per cent reserve floor is a separate change with its own, later date. It is not part of what took effect in August, and both guides still state ten per cent today.
Our board advisory work is the documentation side of this: assembling the budget, reserve, inspection and assessment record a full review asks for, and levelling the bids when the work that comes out of it has to be priced.
Fannie Mae also runs a free status check that lets a board, its manager or an authorised advisor see whether a project has been flagged. Status is reversible — Fannie Mae reports updating more than two thousand projects since 2022 once documentation showed the issues were resolved.
Not lending or legal advice.Collaborative Concept is not a lender, a mortgage broker, a law firm or a licensed engineer. This page summarises published Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guidance as of September 2026 so a board can see what is being asked of it. Agency guidance changes, and how it applies to a particular building is a question for that building’s lender, counsel and engineer.
Sources: Fannie Mae Lender Letter LL-2026-03 (18 March 2026) and Announcement SEL-2026-07 (5 August 2026), with Selling Guide B4-2.1-02, B4-2.1-03 and B4-2.2-01; Freddie Mac Guide Bulletin 2026-C (18 March 2026) and Bulletin 2026-6 (6 May 2026), with Single-Family Seller/Servicer Guide chapter 5701.