What a slow market does to an association

Four effects, and the first is the one boards underestimate.

Documentation delays start killing deals. In a fast market a buyer waits for a resale certificate and a project questionnaire. In a 73-day market with 18 percent of listings taking price cuts, a buyer with alternatives does not wait — and an association that takes three weeks to produce a §6(d) certificate and answer a lender's questionnaire is a reason to walk.

This has become sharply more consequential this year, because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac eliminated Limited Review for loan applications dated on or after 3 August 2026. Limited Review was roughly 40 percent of project reviews; every affected transaction now goes to Full Review, which requires the association to produce budgets, reserve studies, insurance certificates and litigation disclosures.

Delinquencies rise. Owners who would have sold instead hold, and some of them hold while falling behind. An owner who cannot sell is an owner who cannot resolve a delinquency by closing.

Special assessments get harder to pass. Owners who believe their unit has lost value vote differently on a capital project than owners who believe it has gained.

Fee increases get scrutinised. A $386 median fee is a number buyers compare. Boards raising fees to meet the new 15 percent reserve floor taking effect 4 January 2027 will meet owners who have read that a higher fee makes their unit harder to sell.

The counter-argument available to boards

It is the more accurate one, and it is worth putting to owners directly.

A low fee is not an asset. An association with a low fee and thin reserves is one that cannot answer a lender's Full Review questions, may fall outside project eligibility, and will need a special assessment sooner. In a market where financing friction is already lengthening sale timelines, being the building whose paperwork is clean is a competitive advantage that shows up in price.

Eric Churchill of Schernecker Property Services, quoted on Massachusetts associations: of hundreds reviewed, none maintained adequate long-term infrastructure funding. Condominium attorney Stephen Marcus's framing is that trustees have a fiduciary duty to set fees covering operations and maintenance, and that delay converts small problems into expensive crises — one cited community spent $450,000 over a decade on cosmetic fixes rather than structural needs.

What a board can do this quarter

• Time your document turnaround and fix it if it is slow. Resale certificate, §6(d) certificate, questionnaire: know how many business days each takes today.
• Pre-assemble the Full Review packet. Current budget with reserve line, reserve study, insurance certificates including fidelity coverage, and a standing litigation disclosure. Update it quarterly; hand it over on request.
• Answer the questionnaire consistently. The common failure in self-managed Massachusetts associations is not a bad answer — it is two different answers from two different trustees on consecutive transactions.
• Watch the master policy deductible. The $50,000 per-unit cap effective 1 July 2026 is a hard financing line, and a deductible above it blocks the loan regardless of the building's condition.

The caveat

These are reported market figures from a single reporting period, drawn from MLS PIN data as of September 2025. They describe a direction, not a forecast, and nothing here predicts what any particular unit sells for. The operational point stands regardless of where the market goes next: an association that can produce a clean document package quickly is easier to buy into than one that cannot.

What to watch next

Whether the softening persisted through 2026, and how associations cope with the reserve floor arriving on 4 January 2027 — the first budget cycle in which the lending standard and the market pressure meet in the same room.