On August 3, 2026, Fannie Mae quietly closed a financing shortcut that condo buyers had relied on for years. The Limited Review pathway, which let a buyer with a strong down payment skip a deep dive into a condominium association's finances, is gone for good on any conventional loan application dated after that day. Every established condo project with more than ten units now goes through a Full Review of its budget, reserves, delinquency rate, and insurance, no matter how large the buyer's check.
If you are shopping downtown Fort Lauderdale condo towers right now, that change lands differently depending on what you assumed about building age. A lot of buyers looking at a 2005 tower like 350 Las Olas Place have been quietly telling themselves the same thing: this building is newer, so the reserve and inspection headaches belong to someone else's 1970s tower a few blocks over. That assumption held up reasonably well through most of the past decade. It does not hold up anymore, and the reason is worth understanding before you write an offer.
The assumption that stopped being true
Downtown Fort Lauderdale's condo market has been pricing building age into every transaction for a while now. Older, unrenovated towers have traded at steep discounts to the overall market as buyers priced in the risk of a surprise special assessment. That discount is not irrational. It reflects real underwriting friction that older buildings have faced since Florida rewrote its condo safety laws after the Champlain Towers South collapse in 2021.
The trouble is that buyers have extended the logic further than the law actually supports. The instinct goes something like this: older building, structural risk, financing risk, price discount. Newer building, no structural risk, no financing risk, no discount needed. That chain breaks at the second link, and it breaks because two separate rules are doing two separate jobs.
Two rules, two triggers, one confused buyer pool
Florida's milestone inspection requirement is genuinely tied to age. Broward County requires the first structural inspection at 25 years, regardless of where in the county the building sits, and every 10 years after that. Completed in April 2005, 350 Las Olas Place is 21 years old as of this year, which means its first milestone inspection is not due until it crosses the 25-year mark around 2030. A buyer comparing this tower to a 1978 building on Galt Ocean Mile is right to notice that the Galt building has already been through at least one round of mandatory inspection while 350 Las Olas Place has not.
But the Structural Integrity Reserve Study, the funding requirement that actually drives special assessments, is not tied to age at all. It is tied to height. Any residential condominium of three or more habitable stories has to have a SIRS on file and has had to fully fund the reserves it identifies since budgets adopted on or after January 1, 2025. A board can no longer vote to waive reserve funding for the structural components a SIRS covers, and that rule applies to a 30-story tower built last year with the same force it applies to one built in 1985.
| Milestone Inspection | SIRS Reserve Funding | |
|---|---|---|
| What triggers it | Building age (25 years in Broward, 30 elsewhere) | Building height (3+ habitable stories, any age) |
| Applies to 350 Las Olas Place | Not due until roughly 2030 | Already in effect |
| What a buyer should ask for | The most recent inspection report, if one exists | The current SIRS and the funding schedule behind it |
That second column is the part the age-based discount misses. A newer building can be years away from its first inspection and still be required, right now, to fund reserves at the level its SIRS calls for. If the association hasn't kept up, the exposure shows up the same way it does in an older building: as a special assessment, or as a reserve line item that quietly raises your monthly HOA fee.
What changed at the lender's desk, not the building
The Fannie Mae shift makes this harder to avoid than it used to be. Before August 3, a buyer with 20 or 25 percent down at a well-regarded, newer building could often close on a Limited Review, which meant the lender looked at the buyer's file and did not look very hard at the association's. That pathway accounted for roughly 40 percent of all condo project reviews nationally before it was retired, according to reporting in TheStreet. Now every one of those loans routes through Full Review instead, which means the lender is reading the same budget, the same reserve study, and the same delinquency numbers whether the tower went up in 2005 or 1985.
Under the guidance that eliminated Limited Review, a project can also be flagged as non-warrantable if identified repairs to critical components add up to more than $10,000 per unit and the association hasn't set aside the money to cover them. That threshold does not care about the building's age either. It cares about whether the reserve account matches the repair list.
None of this means 350 Las Olas Place has a funding problem. Current resale listings in the building describe it as well maintained, with reserves in place and no special assessments pending. That is worth taking at face value as a starting point, and it is also exactly the kind of claim a Full Review is designed to verify rather than assume. Listing language reflects what a seller's agent knows or has been told. It is not a substitute for reading the SIRS yourself.
What to actually pull before you write an offer
If you are looking at a unit here, or at any downtown tower where the seller's side is leaning on "well maintained" as a selling point, ask for these documents inside your inspection period rather than after it closes:
- The current Structural Integrity Reserve Study and its funding schedule, not a summary of it
- The last two years of board meeting minutes, where reserve transfers and any assessment discussions actually get recorded
- Confirmation of whether a milestone inspection has been performed or is scheduled, even if the building isn't due yet
- The master insurance declarations page, since inadequate coverage is one of the more common reasons a project loses its financing eligibility
- The association's delinquency rate, since a project can be flagged if more than 15 percent of units run 60 or more days past due on assessments
- Whether the building currently shows as eligible in Fannie Mae's Condo Project Manager status, which your lender can check directly
None of that is unique to 350 Las Olas Place. It is the same list a careful buyer should run at any downtown tower right now. The difference is that a lot of buyers stop asking these questions the moment they hear "built in 2005," and that is precisely the gap the rule changes just closed.
The HOA fee is the number that actually reflects the reserve math
Monthly dues at 350 Las Olas Place run in the range of roughly $2,424 for a three-bedroom unit, based on current published fee schedules. That figure already bakes in whatever reserve contribution the association is currently making. It is a more honest signal of financial health than the building's age, because it reflects what the board has actually decided to collect rather than what a buyer assumes based on the year the certificate of occupancy was issued. If that number climbs meaningfully after your SIRS review compared to what you saw in an older listing, that is the reserve funding mandate working exactly as intended, not a red flag unique to this address.
A few direct answers
Does 350 Las Olas Place need a milestone inspection right now? No. Based on its April 2005 completion date and Broward County's 25-year trigger, the first inspection is not due until around 2030.
If the building isn't due for inspection, why does the reserve study matter today? Because the SIRS requirement is tied to height, not age. Any condominium of three or more habitable stories has had to fund its SIRS-identified reserves since budgets adopted on or after January 1, 2025, regardless of when the milestone inspection comes due.
Can a large down payment or an all-cash offer get around the Full Review requirement? A cash purchase doesn't trigger Fannie Mae's project review at all, since no conventional mortgage is involved. But if you plan to finance, a bigger down payment no longer buys you the Limited Review shortcut. Every conventional loan application dated on or after August 3, 2026 goes through the same Full Review of the association's finances.
Building age still tells you something in this market. It just doesn't tell you what a lot of buyers think it does anymore. If you are weighing a unit at 350 Las Olas Place against something older or newer nearby, the reserve study and the board minutes will tell you more about your actual risk than the year on the certificate of occupancy ever will.
If you want a second set of eyes on a specific building's financials before you write an offer, D'Angelo Realty Group has spent more than two decades reading these documents for downtown Fort Lauderdale towers. Request a Free Condo Market Valuation and we'll walk through what the numbers actually say before you're locked into a contract.
