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Condo Project Advisor: How Freddie Mac's Review Process Differs From Fannie Mae's

Published September 14, 2026 · 6-minute read · By the CondoScores team at RentSpire

Nearly every article about condo lending — including several on this site — is written around Fannie Mae's Full Review process and Form 1076. That's understandable, since Fannie Mae publishes a public Full Review checklist and a widely-discussed "unavailable" list. But Freddie Mac buys roughly as many condo loans as Fannie Mae, and it runs a completely separate review system: Condo Project Advisor. Boards and buyers who only prepare for Fannie's process can still get tripped up on a Freddie Mac loan. Here's what Freddie Mac's own FAQ actually says about how it works.

What Condo Project Advisor actually is

Freddie Mac describes Condo Project Advisor (CPA) as "a Freddie Mac risk assessment tool that provides feedback on a condominium project's compliance with certain project review requirements," adding that its "key features include Project Assessment Request (PAR), Project Waiver Request (PWR) and Project Certified Submission (PCS)" (Freddie Mac Condo Project Advisor FAQ). The tool is governed by Guide Sections 5701.10 and 5701.11.

The three request types work differently:

There's also PAL (Project Assessment Lookup), a read-only version for third-party originators: "authorized third-party originators (TPOs) can obtain feedback (PAL findings) about a condo project's compliance with the project review requirements assessed by Condo Project Advisor" (Freddie Mac CPA FAQ). Note that a PAL finding doesn't come with the same documentation as a PAR: "A Condo Project Advisor Feedback Certificate isn't issued with PAL findings" (Freddie Mac CPA FAQ).

A finding doesn't clear the whole building — only one loan

This is the detail boards most often get wrong. A favorable CPA result is not a building-wide green light. Freddie Mac is explicit: "a PAR or PAL finding only covers a project's compliance with the project review requirements that the tool assesses. Additionally, the PAR finding is applicable only to the mortgage identified on the Condo Project Advisor Feedback Certificate. It isn't transferrable to other mortgages secured by units in the same project" (Freddie Mac CPA FAQ). In other words: every unit sale in the building generally needs its own PAR, even if a neighbor's unit cleared review last month — the one narrow exception being a project that has earned Project Certified status (below).

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Project Certified status: the closest thing to a building-wide pass

Project Certified is the one path that reduces repeat underwriting across units. Freddie Mac defines it as when "Condo Project Advisor finds the condo project complies with the requirements it assesses for this status," per Guide Section 5701.10(d)(i) (Freddie Mac CPA FAQ). It's not available to every project on request — "Condo Project Advisor will specify on certain PARs if the condo project may be submitted for a Project Certified review," and Freddie notes plainly that it "assesses only a limited number of projects for this status" (Freddie Mac CPA FAQ).

Even with Project Certified status, the requirements assessed are narrower than a full eligibility review — limited to the Glossary's definition of an Established Condominium Project, Section 5701.3 (Ineligible Projects), and Section 5701.5 (Established Condominium Projects) (Freddie Mac CPA FAQ). The lender still carries responsibility beyond that: "When Condo Project Advisor assigns a Project Certified status to the project, the Seller must ensure compliance with the general condo project eligibility requirements in Section 5701.2(b)" (Freddie Mac CPA FAQ).

For a board pursuing Project Certified through a PCS request, the documentation list is specific and worth preparing in advance:

Missing documents stall the whole submission: "Incomplete PCS requests won't be reviewed until the Seller has provided all the required documents" (Freddie Mac CPA FAQ). On the upside, once a complete package is in, Freddie Mac commits to a fast turnaround: "We'll make every effort to respond with a decision on your PCS within five business days of your submission of all required documents" (Freddie Mac CPA FAQ).

Notice the overlap with Fannie Mae's process here — the three-year structural/mechanical inspection window shows up in both GSEs' rules, just under different section numbers. Fannie Mae's version of this same three-year clock comes from SEL-2023-06; Freddie Mac's comes from Section 5701.10(f). Keeping one current inspection on file satisfies both.

It's free, and there's no public "unavailable" list

Two practical points that differ from what boards may expect from Fannie Mae's process:

No fee. "No. Condo Project Advisor is a free tool requiring no fee to use" (Freddie Mac CPA FAQ).

No published ineligible-projects list. Fannie Mae's "unavailable" list gets a lot of press coverage, but Freddie Mac says it deliberately doesn't run anything comparable: "Freddie Mac does not maintain a commercially available list of ineligible condo projects and does not ask lenders to refer to any other static list of projects. We won't provide the number of projects or a list of projects with any PAR finding status (e.g., Green, Yellow), including the Not Eligible status PAR finding" (Freddie Mac CPA FAQ). Freddie's stated reasoning is that a "Not Eligible" result is a live, project-specific PAR finding rather than a static blacklist entry, and it can change as underlying facts change.

For boards, this cuts both ways: there's no static list to check your building against ahead of time, but there's also no risk of a stale public "unavailable" label lingering online after the underlying problem is fixed — a friction point that led directly to Fannie Mae's own August 2026 process for removing a project from unavailable status.

What this means for boards and buyers

  1. Don't assume a Fannie Mae Full Review pass carries over to a Freddie Mac loan. They're separate systems with separate section numbers, separate documentation triggers, and separate outcomes. A buyer using a Freddie Mac-backed lender will go through CPA, not Fannie's Full Review process.
  2. Ask your lender directly whether they're originating to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac — or selling to both — early in the transaction, since the review path and required documents differ.
  3. If your building sells units frequently, ask about Project Certified status. It's the only mechanism that reduces the burden of a fresh review on every single unit sale, though it's only offered when CPA flags a project as eligible for it.
  4. Keep one current structural/mechanical inspection on file, dated within the last three years. It satisfies both Freddie Mac's Section 5701.10(f) requirement and Fannie Mae's SEL-2023-06 requirement simultaneously — one document, two GSEs covered.
  5. There is no Freddie Mac list to Google your building against. Unlike Fannie Mae's public-facing unavailable list, Freddie Mac's PAR findings are private, lender-facing, and mortgage-specific. If a board wants to know its status, it needs a lender to run the request — there's no self-service public lookup.

Sources

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