New Fannie Mae condo guidelines present a new significant hurdle to sales for Boston condo developers. In the face of these hurdles and with increasingly less patient lenders it is likely that the Boston area will see more condo auctions in 2009. The Wall Street Journal reports a summary of the changes:
“The government-backed mortgage-finance company stopped guaranteeing mortgages in condo buildings where fewer than 70% of the units have been sold, up from 51%. In addition, the company won’t back loans for sales in buildings where 15% of current owners are delinquent on association fees or where more than 10% of units are owned by a single-entity…The new policy became effective March 1, and most lenders have started to implement Fannie’s guidelines.”
In my business I work mainly with lenders and attorneys. Except in cases where developers have failed (often repeatedly) to reach the prescribed milestones, lenders to this point have been very generous with extensions and have been inclined to work with developers through slower than expected sales. Lately, as pressure has been mounting, I’m hearing about a lot less patience. Until this fall it was easy to be optimistic that something would happen and sales would improve in a relatively short time but the fact is that today most of the people I’m talking to are now expecting a longer down cycle than they may have previously.
After just two short months we’ll be able to assess the spring market and whether or not its made a significant impact on inventory. While there are some positive signs in the residential market, many lenders will be unable or unwilling to extend construction loans without some concrete evidence of forward motion. If Fannie’s new rules stifle that motion over these next two months, you can count on a spate of condo auctions through the second half of the year.
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Tim Ryan 
