For the buyer who has been approved for a mortgage and assumes that is the end of it, and who is about to sign a pre-construction contract with no financing contingency in it.
This page explains. Whether the building suits you is a separate conversation. Contact the desk at Miami Dossier for the current position on any building we cover.
Yes. A mortgage on a condominium is underwritten twice: once on the borrower and once on the building, and the second review can refuse a loan the first approved. Lenders who sell their loans to the agencies follow project guidelines that look at how many homes are sold and occupied, who owns them, whether a hotel or a rental programme runs in the tower, how much of the building is shops and restaurants, whether anyone is suing the association or the developer, and whether the budget funds reserves. A building that fails is not unfinanceable; it is financed by lenders who keep their loans, at a larger down payment and a higher rate. On a pre-construction purchase the review happens near delivery, two or three years after the contract, and most developer contracts carry no financing contingency, so a buyer who cannot get the loan then still has to close or forfeit the deposits. The time to ask the question is before the reservation.
A list the agencies publish and the lenders apply, which this page gives in plain terms rather than by clause. How many of the homes are under contract or sold, because a new project has to reach a presale level before the agencies will buy loans in it. How many are occupied by owners or long-term tenants rather than held as investments or rented by the night. Whether any one person or company owns more than a small share of the homes, including the developer's unsold stock. How much of the building's floor area is commercial. Whether the association or the developer is party to litigation, and about what. Whether the association's budget sets aside a share of its income for reserves and whether a special assessment is pending. Whether the building has hotel characteristics: a front desk that registers guests, a rental pool, homes without full kitchens, or an operator that lets the homes out. And since 2022, whether the building has significant deferred maintenance or an unfunded repair, which in Florida is read against the structural integrity reserve study and, for older buildings, the milestone inspection. Read milestone inspections and reserves, how to read the developer's estimated budget and lender approval at Waldorf Astoria.
The ones buyers like most. A tower with a hotel below the residences, which on our file is Waldorf Astoria Residences Miami, Delano Residences & Hotel Miami and Fouquet's Hotel & Residences Miami, is read by an agency lender for hotel characteristics, and the answer depends on how the residences are separated from the hotel in the declaration and whether an owner can put the home into a rental programme. A building that allows short-term rental by design, which on our file is NoMad Residences Wynwood, is read for occupancy and for the share of homes rented by the night. A building with a restaurant, shops or a members' club open to the public is read for its commercial share. A building of ~50 homes is read for single-entity concentration if the developer still holds a dozen of them at the buyer's closing. None of that makes a building a bad home; it makes it a building where the buyer asks the lender first. Read lender approval at Delano, lender approval at Fouquet's and Miami short-term rental rules.
The association, through a questionnaire the lender sends it, and on a brand-new building that means the developer-controlled association and its manager. The questionnaire asks for the counts above, the budget, the insurance, the litigation and the rules, and it is answered near the closing, when the lender has a loan to make. On a pre-construction purchase that is the problem: the buyer signs in 2026, the building delivers in 2028 or 2029, and the questionnaire is answered then, with the sales and occupancy figures of that day. The developer can tell a buyer today how the building is designed to be read, whether it has sought an agency project approval or a lender's prior review, and which lenders have agreed to lend in it, and a serious developer has those answers. Read cash or mortgage for a Miami pre-construction condo, what a developer's construction loan tells you and which dates in a Miami preconstruction contract can you not miss.
Three paths. A portfolio lender or a private bank, which keeps the loan and sets its own project rules, usually for a client with a relationship and a larger down payment. A lender that writes loans for investors or foreign nationals without agency sale in mind, which accepts hotel residences and rental buildings by design, at its own rate. Or cash, which is why the deposit schedule and the cash to close are planned from the first day as if the loan might not come. What does not happen is a way out of the contract: a developer's purchase agreement without a financing contingency treats a failed loan as the buyer's problem, and the remedy for not closing is the developer keeping the deposits the contract allows it to keep, which is a question for counsel before signing, not after. A buyer who may need the loan asks for an extension clause or a financing condition at contract, and a developer in a strong market usually says no. Read foreign national financing, buying without US credit history, deposit forfeiture if you walk away and what happens to your mortgage if a Miami pre-construction closing is delayed.
Six questions, in writing, to the sales team and to a lender. Is the building designed to meet agency project guidelines, and has any lender reviewed it. Are the residences a separate condominium from the hotel, where there is one, and can an owner put the home into a rental programme. What share of the floor area is commercial. What does the estimated budget set aside for reserves. Which lenders have agreed to lend in the building, at what down payment, and will they lend to this buyer's structure, a person, a trust or a company. And what the contract says if the loan does not come. A lender who answers the first and the fifth before the reservation has told the buyer more than the brochure will. Read documents a Miami pre-construction buyer should request, can you get more time to close on a new Miami condo and what a US bank asks a foreign buyer. The desk introduces the lenders who have lent in each building and reads the contract's financing language with the buyer before the reservation.
Contact the desk at Miami Dossier for the current plans, pricing and availability as the developer releases them, discussed one to one.
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We hold no listings and we are not the developer. Contact the desk at Miami Dossier and we will tell you what applies to your situation, what does not, and where we would not proceed. Where a question is legal, tax or structuring, we introduce you to advisers who handle that properly rather than answering it ourselves.
Metrik Real Estate is a Miami real estate company built around one idea: the buyer gets their own team. Miami Dossier is its private buyer advisory for new construction.
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