Learning Center

How buying a condo or townhome works

You are buying into an organization as much as a home — its rules, its finances, and its deferred maintenance become yours on closing day. Here is what to read, in what order, and the deadlines that actually bind.

A condo purchase runs on a second track that a single-family purchase does not have. Alongside inspecting the home and qualifying yourself for a loan, you are evaluating an organization: what it has promised, what it has saved, what it has put off, and what it can stop you from doing with your own unit. The lender is doing the same thing, and it can decline a flawless borrower because the building did not pass. Washington gives you real tools for this — a statutory disclosure package and a cancellation window — but which ones you get depends on when the community was created, and the rules changed materially in June 2026.

Five things that are not true of a house

‘Townhome’ is architecture, not ownership

Washington's common-interest statute recognizes four kinds of community: condominium, cooperative, plat community, and a residual miscellaneous category. The words townhouse, townhome, and planned unit development appear nowhere in it. A townhome is a building shape — multi-story, shared side walls, its own front door — and that same shape gets sold under completely different legal structures. As a plat community unit you own the platted lot and the structure on it. As a condominium unit you own air space while the association owns the land, roof, and exterior. Two units on the same street, both advertised as townhomes, can carry different maintenance duties, different insurance needs, and different mortgage eligibility. The recorded declaration says which one it is.

Which statute governs depends on when the community was created

Communities created on or after July 1, 2018 fall under the Washington Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act. Condominiums created between mid-1990 and mid-2018 follow the older Condominium Act, and those created before mid-1990 follow an older act still — though the resale certificate and reserve rules were extended back to reach them. Non-condominium homeowner associations formed before July 1, 2018 sat under a separate chapter that contains no resale certificate provision at all. It matters because the buyer protections are genuinely not the same, and because the whole older framework is repealed as of January 1, 2028.

The resale certificate is your window into the building

Under the current act it runs to twenty-six required items and the association has ten days to produce it, at a cost capped at $275. It has to disclose the seller's delinquent and levied assessments, other owners' delinquencies, the association's own past-due obligations, anticipated repairs exceeding five percent of the annual budget, unsatisfied judgments and pending litigation, insurance, leasing restrictions, age restrictions, and whether a compliant reserve study exists. As of a 2026 amendment it must include the full current reserve study rather than a summary, plus twelve months of meeting minutes and all effective board policies. If there is no reserve study, the certificate must carry a specific warning saying so.

Your cancellation window is five business days — and only sometimes

This is where current advice online is frequently wrong. Under the newer act, a buyer may cancel within five business days of first receiving the resale certificate; that changed from five plain days on June 11, 2026, and most published guidance has not caught up. Under the older Condominium Act the contract stays voidable until the certificate is delivered and for five days after. And if you are buying in a pre-2018 townhome association that is not a condominium, there may be no statutory certificate right at all — you get the documents by writing it into the contract or you do not get them.

The building has to qualify for the loan, not just you

On a single-family home the lender underwrites you. On a condo it underwrites the project too, and a project that fails is called non-warrantable. Fannie Mae's disqualifiers include more than fifteen percent of units sixty or more days delinquent on assessments, commercial space above thirty-five percent, single-entity ownership over the concentration limits, litigation touching safety or structural soundness, and reserve funding below ten percent of the budget. After the Surfside collapse the agencies made deferred-maintenance review permanent policy: a project needing critical repairs is ineligible, and any unfunded repairs costing more than ten thousand dollars per unit that should be done within twelve months will stop the loan. A perfect borrower can be denied because of the building.

The process, in the order it actually happens

01
Decide what ownership structure you actually want

Before touring, get clear on the difference between owning air space with a association responsible for the roof, owning a platted lot and the structure on it, and owning shares in a cooperative with a proprietary lease. They carry different maintenance burdens, different monthly costs, and different resale markets. Neither is better in the abstract — but a buyer who wanted no exterior maintenance and ended up in a plat community, or who wanted control and ended up in a condominium, has a problem that no amount of negotiating fixes.

Watch for: Listing language is marketing, not law. Ask what the recorded declaration says the community is; the declaration has to state the type in its opening recital.
02
Get pre-approved, and tell your lender it is a condo

Say the word early. Condo financing carries a project review on top of your own underwriting, and lenders differ in how much of that they will do and how fast. If you are considering FHA, note that single-unit approval — which lets FHA insure a unit in a project that is not on the approved list — became considerably easier in May 2026 when case-number assignment was automated. It still has eligibility limits, including caps on how many units in the project may carry FHA loans.

Watch for: A pre-approval that does not contemplate the specific building is only half an approval. The project review can undo it.
03
Order the resale certificate as early as you can

The association has ten days, and your cancellation clock does not start until you actually receive the certificate. Ordering late compresses the most important review of the entire purchase into whatever days are left. The seller carries the statutory duty to furnish it and the fee is capped, so there is rarely a good reason for delay.

Watch for: An association may not require you or the seller to set up an account with a third-party vendor to get the certificate, and documents already available on an owner portal cannot be charged for again. Both limits are new as of June 2026.
04
Read the declaration for the rules that are hard to change

The declaration is recorded against the land, runs with it, and binds every future owner. Rules adopted by the board are far easier to change in both directions. That hierarchy tells you where to look: leasing restrictions in Washington have to be in the declaration, because a board may only restrict leasing by rule to the extent the restriction is reasonably designed to meet institutional lender underwriting requirements. If renting the unit out is ever part of your plan, the declaration is the document that decides, not the rules and not what the seller tells you.

Watch for: Age-related occupancy restrictions and restrictions on resale proceeds both have to be disclosed. Read for them specifically rather than assuming their absence.
05
Read the money: reserves, minutes, and the repair nobody has levied yet

Washington requires most residential common-interest communities to have a reserve study, updated annually, with a professional visual site inspection at least every third year — and that requirement now reaches back to communities created before 2018. The study should show the percent of the fully funded balance and both a full and a baseline funding plan across thirty years. Then read the minutes. The certificate has to disclose anticipated repairs exceeding five percent of the annual budget, which is the item that catches the special assessment that has been discussed but not yet levied.

Watch for: A low monthly assessment in an underfunded building is not a bargain — it is a deferred bill with your name going on it. Compare the reserve balance against what the study says the components will cost.
06
Let the lender finish its project review before you release contingencies

This is the stage that catches people. The lender will look for delinquencies, litigation, commercial space, single-entity concentration, insurance, and deferred maintenance. If a structural or mechanical inspection was completed within three years of the review, the lender must obtain and review it, and it cannot show unaddressed critical repairs or an evacuation order. A special assessment tied to a critical repair that has not been remediated makes the project ineligible outright.

Watch for: The project questionnaire form is optional for lenders, but the underlying review is mandatory. A lender who skips the form still has to document the answers from minutes, engineer reports, and the reserve study — which takes time.
07
Review the seller's disclosure, then close

Washington's seller disclosure statement applies to improved residential property including condominiums; there is no separate statutory condo version, and its common-interest questions live in the homeowners' association section covering assessments, pending special assessments, shared areas, and whether required association approvals were obtained for any remodeling. The seller must deliver it within five business days of mutual acceptance unless you agree otherwise, and you have three business days from receipt to rescind at your sole discretion.

Watch for: The disclosure is made by the seller, is not part of the purchase agreement, and is not a warranty. If you do not deliver a written rescission notice within the window, it is deemed accepted.

Questions buyers actually ask

What is a resale certificate and who pays for it?

It is a disclosure package the association prepares about the unit and the community — assessments, delinquencies, reserves, litigation, insurance, governing documents, and anticipated major repairs. The statutory duty to furnish it sits with the seller, so the seller pays by default, though allocation is negotiable in the purchase agreement. The association has ten days to produce it and may charge no more than $275, or $100 for an update within six months. Under the current act, that fee covers only the direct cost of copying and providing the information and cannot be charged for documents already sitting on an owner portal.

How long do I have to back out after I get it?

Five business days from first receiving the certificate, if the community was created on or after July 1, 2018. If it is an older condominium under the previous act, the contract remains voidable until the certificate is provided and for five days after, or until conveyance, whichever comes first. Be careful with advice you find elsewhere — the five-business-day rule only took effect on June 11, 2026, and a great deal of published Washington real estate content still quotes the old number.

Do townhomes come with a resale certificate too?

It depends entirely on when the community was created, and this is one of the most useful things to understand before you write an offer. Under the current act the resale certificate applies to all unit types it governs — condominiums, cooperatives, plat communities, and miscellaneous communities — so a modern townhome development created after mid-2018 is covered. But the chapter that governed non-condominium homeowner associations before July 2018 contains no resale certificate provision whatsoever. If you are buying in a 1995 townhome association, you have no statutory right to those documents and must obtain them by contract instead.

What are CC&Rs, exactly?

CC&Rs is industry shorthand — the phrase appears nowhere in Washington's common-interest statute. What actually exists is a hierarchy. The declaration is recorded against the land, runs with it, and is hardest to change; it is what people usually mean by CC&Rs. Organizational documents, including the bylaws, govern the association as an entity: elections, meetings, quorum, board procedure. Rules are board-adopted policies not set out in either of the above, and they are the easiest to change — which cuts both ways, since a rule you like can be repealed and one you dislike can sometimes be fixed without a supermajority.

What makes a condo non-warrantable, and what happens then?

Non-warrantable simply means the project does not pass the review that would let a lender sell the loan to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Common causes are delinquency above fifteen percent of units, too much commercial space, one entity owning too many units, litigation involving safety or structural soundness, thin reserve funding, and unaddressed critical repairs. The consequence is mechanical rather than mysterious: the conforming market closes, and you are looking at portfolio lenders who keep the loan on their own books. Their terms are set lender by lender, so ask a lender for real numbers rather than trusting a rule of thumb.

Is there an owner-occupancy minimum I need to worry about?

Less often than you have probably read. Fannie Mae applies a fifty percent owner-occupancy requirement in established projects only when the loan is for an investment property. If you are buying the unit as a principal residence or a second home, there is no owner-occupancy minimum. FHA is different and does apply an owner-occupancy floor. This is one of the most commonly misstated facts in consumer condo content, so confirm it against your actual loan type.

Keep going

About this guide

Legal and lending details checked August 2026. Washington’s common-interest ownership and shoreline rules both changed in 2026 and change again in 2027, so treat anything you read elsewhere without a date on it with suspicion — including older versions of this page. This is general information to help you ask better questions, not legal, tax, or lending advice. For your specific purchase, talk to Linda, your lender, and where the money justifies it, a real estate attorney.

Run the numbers

What would a condo actually cost per month?

The loan is only part of it. Add HOA dues, an HO-6 walls-in policy, and mortgage insurance under 20% down, and the real number moves — dues count against what you qualify for, too. Educational estimates, not a quote.

What are you buying?

Switching resets the numbers to typical assumptions for that type.

Condo or townhome price

Down payment

as a dollar amount

Your quoted rate

Loan term

Condo or townhome estimate

$3,789/ month

$2,781 principal & interest + $1,008 taxes, insurance & dues

Monthly principal & interest: $2,781
Property tax (monthly): $413
Insurance (monthly): $45
HOA dues (monthly): $550
Loan amount: $440,000
Total interest over 30 years: $561,196

Dues are part of what a lender counts against your income, so they affect what you qualify for and not just what you pay. Whether the building is warrantable also affects which loans are available to you.

Estimates only, for education — not a loan offer, quote, or pre-approval. Special Agents Realty is a real estate brokerage, not a lender; actual rates, taxes, insurance, and terms vary. Talk to a lender before you shop.

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