Why this is unusually good news for New Mexico

New Mexico's condominium stock skews small and old: converted fourplexes and small infill buildings in Nob Hill and the Albuquerque near-heights, compound conversions in Santa Fe, small ski-adjacent buildings in Taos, Angel Fire and Red River. Those are exactly the projects that never had the unit count to absorb the cost of a full project review, and they now have a route that requires none.

Fannie Mae's waiver goes further than the review itself. Its conditions include that “the project does not have an 'Unavailable' status in Condo Project Manager” and that it “meets all applicable insurance requirements” — but the letter also notes that “general liability and fidelity insurance are not required for condo projects that qualify for a Waiver of Project Review.”

The two conditions that take it away

A master association. For a project of five to ten units, sitting under a master association or a larger development disqualifies it at both agencies. This is the New Mexico-shaped catch. Master-planned developments here routinely place small condominium pods beneath an umbrella master association, and those pods land in the worst position available: too small to carry meaningful reserves, too “mastered” to be exempt, and, with Limited Review retired, now facing a Full Review.

Manufactured homes. Freddie Mac's exempt path requires that the project “Not include Manufactured Homes unless the Condominium Unit Mortgage is a Refi Possible® Mortgage,” along with conditions that it “Not be in need of Critical Repairs and not have an evacuation order” and “Be composed of at least five but no more than 10 units that are each separately deeded with separate legal descriptions.” New Mexico has one of the higher manufactured-housing shares in the country, and a single manufactured unit inside a small project removes the exemption.

The occupancy cap that vanished at the same time

Both agencies also retired the 50 percent investor concentration limit for established projects. Fannie Mae: “We are retiring the investment property concentration limit of 50% in established projects reviewed as part of the Full Review option on investor loans.” Freddie Mac: “We have retired the 50% owner occupancy requirement in Section 5701.5(b) for investment properties.” Presale requirements for new and newly converted projects remain in place.

For New Mexico's resort-adjacent associations — Ruidoso, Angel Fire, Red River, Taos Ski Valley — where second homes and rentals are the majority of units, that cap was frequently the single binding constraint on financing. Its removal is the most straightforwardly favourable item in the whole March 2026 package.

What now falls to a board

Three facts, all of which the association itself controls or knows: the exact unit count and whether every unit is separately deeded with its own legal description; whether the project is part of a master association or larger development, as the documents actually describe it rather than as people refer to it; and whether the project's status in Condo Project Manager is anything other than clear. Those three answers determine which of three very different regimes the building is in.