The two limits that disappeared

The investor concentration cap. 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.”

The owner-occupancy requirement. Freddie Mac: “We have retired the 50% owner occupancy requirement in Section 5701.5(b) for investment properties. Sellers are no longer required to determine if the project complies with the owner occupancy requirement when reviewing an Established Condominium Project.”

These were the rules that made a heavily rented project unfinanceable for the next investor buyer, and they hit North Dakota communities near universities, in oil-patch cities and in metro rental corridors hardest. A project that tipped past half rentals used to see its financing market narrow. That particular constraint is gone.

What the waiver does and does not establish

Do not drop your fidelity bond or general liability cover. The waiver removes a lender's requirement. It does not remove the association's exposure, and in North Dakota nothing else supplies a floor: the state licenses no community association managers, imposes no bonding requirement, and has no general association statute. A small self-managed association without fidelity cover is one signature away from a loss nobody insures. Our North Dakota insurance requirements page covers what the programme should carry.

Check whether you are “part of a master association or larger development.” For projects of five to ten units this is the condition that decides the waiver. Many small North Dakota buildings sit inside a larger planned development with a master declaration, and the board may not think of it that way. The recorded documents decide it, not the habit.

The retired occupancy limits do not change your own rental rules. If the declaration caps rentals, that cap is unaffected. Nothing in the secondary-market change touches a covenant. Our North Dakota short-term rentals page covers rental restrictions.

And the disclosure duty is unchanged. Since August 1, 2025 a North Dakota association must disclose “Notice of any homeowners' association or condominium project restrictions related to the leasing of a unit” in its resale packet, whatever the lender asks for.

Where the waiver does not save you

A waiver is not a blanket. The ineligibility rules still apply — a project that is terminating, in insolvency proceedings, or carrying unremediated critical repairs is ineligible regardless of review type, and since September 30, 2025 that has expressly included a project that “has voted or is in the process of voting” on such an action.

And the master policy rules bite everywhere: since July 1, 2026 a per-unit deductible above $50,000 makes the units unfinanceable, and any per-unit deductible requires every mortgaged owner to carry an HO-6 policy.

Two other pipeline changes from 2025 worth knowing

Fannie Mae's SEL-2025-02 of April 2, 2025 integrated Condo Project Manager with Desktop Underwriter and retained project approval through the credit report expiration date. And SEL-2025-06 of August 6, 2025 loosened co-operative eligibility and retired the Project Eligibility Waiver process entirely: “The PEW process is being retired, and lenders will no longer be permitted to submit new PEW requests. Loans associated with existing, valid PEWs must be delivered by the waiver's expiration date. No extensions will be granted.” No new project eligibility waivers have been available since September 1, 2025.

What to watch next

Watch whether small North Dakota projects actually see the benefit — the waiver is available immediately, but lenders adopt at their own pace, and a board hearing “we still need the questionnaire” on a six-unit building is dealing with a lender that has not implemented it. Watch too for the January 4, 2027 reserve threshold, which reaches every project that does not qualify for a waiver.