ReserveGap blog
Make sense of your reserve budget.
Practical reading for condo boards, owners and the people helping them work through funding decisions. Start with the question in front of you.
Funding decisions
From reserve study to funding plan
Connect the component schedule to funding timing, financing illustrations and each owner’s share.
All articles
9 articles
Mortgage reserve comparisons
Understanding the 15% reserve benchmark
A worked example, the assessment-income base and the reserve-study alternative for Full Review.
Florida reserves
Florida baseline funding and lender review
Why a state funding schedule and a lender’s project review answer different questions.
Condo financing
The reserve budget in a condo project review
Understand the lender terminology, the reserve comparisons and what an indicative result can tell you.
Condo financing
Limited Review is over — Full Review and the condo reserve tests boards face now
Fannie Mae retired Limited Review for established condos on Aug 3, 2026. What Full Review means for reserve budgets, the two mortgage tests, and what boards should check now.
Mortgage reserve comparisons
Highest recommended contribution: understanding the study pathway
From Aug 3, 2026, lenders using the reserve-study pathway must see the study’s highest recommended contribution in the budget. Baseline funding no longer works for that path.
Condo reserve funding
Special assessment, loan, or hybrid: funding the condo reserve gap
When a condo budget misses a mortgage reserve test, boards usually weigh a special assessment, a loan, a hybrid, or raising the reserve line. How to compare them without guessing.
Mortgage reserve comparisons
Will my condo reserve budget meet the lender benchmarks?
How to check whether a condo association’s reserve budget clears Fannie Mae’s study pathway and 15% floor — what to enter, what the dates mean, and what a “gap” does and doesn’t mean.
Florida reserves
Florida condo reserve requirements: studies, funding and lender review
Understand SIRS funding, owner votes, the limited milestone pause and how lender review differs.