Three weeks ago, on August 3, 2026, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac quietly retired the fast-track condo reviews that used to let a well-qualified buyer close on a unit without anyone digging into the building's finances. Now, in any Boca Raton condo building with ten or more units, a lender has to pull the association's reserve balance, its budget, and its insurance history before approving a conventional loan. A buyer with excellent credit and a large down payment can still be turned down if the building itself fails that review.
That single rule change is a useful lens for something bigger happening across Boca Raton right now. Condo prices in parts of the city look softer than single-family prices. On the surface, that reads like the usual story: less space, more rules, a discount for the tradeoff. But the discount showing up in condo listings this year isn't really about square footage. It's the market pricing in a bill that Florida law forced into the open, and it explains why some of Boca's oldest buildings are correcting hard while brand-new West Boca communities keep raising their prices.
The Bill That Came With the Building
Florida's post-Surfside reforms, passed as SB 4-D in 2022 and refined by SB 154, require condo and co-op buildings three stories or taller to complete a Milestone Inspection and a Structural Integrity Reserve Study, known as a SIRS. The SIRS sets a funding floor for every future budget, and boards can no longer vote to waive it the way many did for decades to keep monthly dues low. HB 913, effective July 1, 2025, pushed the SIRS completion deadline from the end of 2024 to December 31, 2025, but it didn't remove the requirement. For many Florida condo buildings, including a good number here in Palm Beach County, the milestone inspection deadline itself now lands on December 31, 2026.
That is the mechanism. Buildings that deferred reserve funding for years are hitting that deadline at the same time insurance premiums have climbed and repair costs have compounded, and boards are covering all three with one-time special assessments. The published range for those assessments runs from roughly $10,000 to more than $100,000 per unit, and some Palm Beach County associations have already crossed that six-figure line.
What the State's Own Numbers Show
On August 1, 2026, the Florida Legislature's research arm, the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, released the first statewide accounting of how buildings are actually performing under the law. Statewide, milestone inspections flagged substantial structural deterioration in 2,535 buildings, and the average repair bill on the 903 buildings that had completed work approached $500,000, with 30 buildings facing repair costs above $1 million, as reported by the Boca Raton Tribune.
Palm Beach County has roughly 600 condo buildings and 25,000 units covered by the law, and the state's map placed the county in the lower band of Phase Two inspections, somewhere between 10 and 41 buildings, compared with 155 to 308 in Broward and Miami-Dade. That sounds like good news for Palm Beach, but the same reporting flagged something less comfortable: among South Florida's building officials, Palm Beach County had the highest rate of noncompliance in reporting inspection results back to the state at all. In other words, the county with fewer confirmed problems is also the county where officials know the least about what's actually out there. That gap is exactly why lenders stopped taking a building's word for it and started requiring the paperwork directly.
The number that actually tells you whether a building is in trouble isn't its age. It's the percent-funded figure in its SIRS.
A reserve study funded above 70 percent generally signals a healthy building with a low chance of a surprise assessment. Between 30 and 70 percent, expect measured dues increases rather than a crisis. Below 30 percent, a special assessment is likely rather than possible.
That one figure, not the building's birth year, is what separates a genuine bargain from a liability wearing a bargain's price tag.
Two Segments, Two Very Different Markets
The price data backs this up in a way that a single citywide median never shows. Boca Raton's condo and single-family markets are behaving like two separate cities right now.
| Segment | Inventory | Days on market | Change from 2023 peak |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry and mid-range condos ($250K to $500K) | 3 to 5 months | 50 to 75 days | Down 5 to 8 percent |
| Single-family homes in established neighborhoods ($500K to $1.5M) | 2 to 3 months | 35 to 45 days | Down 1 to 3 percent, flat to slightly up near the beach or FAU |
Pending sales in that entry-level condo tier have dropped 20 to 30 percent year over year, which tells you buyers aren't just negotiating harder, some are walking away once they see a building's financials. Single-family homes in the same price range have held far steadier, because a house doesn't carry a shared reserve account that can suddenly demand five figures from every owner at once.
Here's the part that complicates the easy "condos are struggling" headline. Not every condo segment is struggling. An Institute for Luxury Home Marketing review of December 2025 sales found Boca's attached luxury tier, condos and townhomes at $500,000 and up, actually saw its median sale price climb to $850,000 from $760,000 the year before, even as days on market ticked up slightly to 68 from 64. Buyers in that tier aren't avoiding condos. They're taking a little longer to review the HOA's reserves before writing an offer, and they're still paying more for the buildings that pass that review. The correction is concentrated in older, thinly reserved buildings. It isn't a verdict on condo living itself.
Why West Boca's New Construction Skips the Problem Entirely
This is also the reason builder pricing in West Boca hasn't slowed down while resale condo listings pile up. Communities like GL Homes' Boca Bridges, built out between 2020 and 2022 and now trading entirely as resale, and its newer Lotus Edge community, currently selling with builder pricing in the $1.7 million to $3 million range and recent closed sales averaging around $2.7 million, won't face a Milestone Inspection for another two and a half decades. Toll Brothers' Royal Palm Polo, positioned as the only new luxury single-family estate community inside Boca Raton's city limits, and its Meravita community, currently selling six floor plans from roughly $2.1 million to $2.6 million, carry the same advantage. These are single-family communities to begin with, so the SIRS and milestone framework under Chapter 718 doesn't apply to them in the first place, but even GL Homes' upcoming Agave Boca townhome project starts its own reserve clock from zero rather than inheriting decades of deferred maintenance.
New construction isn't outperforming resale condos because it's newer in a cosmetic sense. It's outperforming because it hasn't yet accumulated the liability that older buildings are now being forced to disclose.
The Documents That Actually Answer the Question
If you're weighing a resale condo against a house or a new-construction unit in Boca Raton right now, the SIRS percent-funded figure is the single most useful number you can get your hands on, and Florida law makes it easier to get than it used to be. As of January 1, 2026, associations with 25 or more units must post governing documents, budgets, and reserve studies through a website or app under HB 1021, and buyers purchasing a resale condo unit now have a seven-day rescission period, up from three, to review what the association provides.
Before writing an offer on any Boca Raton condo built before 2000, ask for:
- The most recent Structural Integrity Reserve Study, specifically the percent-funded figure, not just confirmation that one exists
- The Milestone Inspection report or a written statement of where the building stands in that process
- Twelve to twenty-four months of board meeting minutes, looking for any discussion of assessments, loans, or insurance renewals
- The master insurance certificate, including wind and flood coverage and any open claims or litigation
- Confirmation of the building's lender warrantability status, since a failed Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac review can shrink your buyer pool just as much as it shrank yours
A building that hands these over without hesitation is telling you something. A building that stalls is telling you something else.
What This Means If You're Choosing Right Now
The Boca Raton market isn't split between condos and houses. It's split between buildings and neighborhoods that dealt with their reserves honestly and those that didn't, and 2026 is the year that difference became visible in the price. A condo priced well below where it sold in 2023 might be a genuine opportunity if its reserves are funded and its Milestone Inspection is clean. If the SIRS shows a building under 30 percent funded with a Phase Two report still pending, that same low price is closer to a deposit on a bill you haven't received yet.
If you're comparing a discounted resale condo, a steady single-family home in an established neighborhood, and a new-construction option in West Boca, the honest comparison isn't square footage per dollar. It's how much of that dollar is buying a real position in a well-run building versus how much of it is a placeholder for an assessment notice that hasn't been mailed.
A Few Common Questions
Does this reserve law apply to townhomes and villas too? It depends on the structure. Condo and co-op associations three stories or higher fall under Florida's Chapter 718 milestone and SIRS requirements. Most single-family and townhome HOAs fall under a different chapter with lighter reserve mandates, though those associations are feeling their own pressure from rising insurance costs.
Is every older building in Boca Raton at risk? No. Buildings that funded their reserves consistently, or completed milestone work early, are the ones showing up in the luxury attached-home data with rising prices despite a slightly longer sales process. Age alone doesn't predict trouble. The reserve study does.
If I'm paying cash, does any of this still matter? Yes. A building with unfunded reserves or a failed inspection becomes harder for the next buyer to finance, which limits your resale pool even if your own purchase never touches a lender.
If you're weighing a Boca Raton condo against a house or a new-construction option and want someone to pull the actual building documents before you fall for a price, Andrew Ferreira can walk through the numbers with you and tell you what they mean before you write an offer.
