Florida Condo Down Payment Rules Set to Change in 2026

Florida condo buyers have long faced a penalty that buyers in other states don’t. Starting in the aftermath of the Great Recession, federal rules required buyers in Florida to put down 25% on a condo purchase, compared to just 10% everywhere else. Banks would finance 75% in Florida, versus 90% in most of the country. That gap has quietly priced thousands of would-be homeowners out of the market for years, and it appears relief is finally on the way.

U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds says the disparity will end by August, after he pressed Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner on the issue earlier this year. The change would bring Florida in line with the rest of the country, allowing buyers here to make the same down payment on a condo that buyers in any other state can make.

“In Florida, you can do the same down payment for a condo like you can anywhere else in America,” Donalds said. “This is a major step forward for affordability in our state. People trying to get into the game of ownership in our state to be able to put less down to buy a condo.”

For a state where the condo market has been under particular strain, the timing matters. Florida’s condo sector has faced compounding pressures, from rising insurance costs to new safety inspection requirements passed after the Surfside collapse to the broader economic turbulence of the current moment. Reducing the barrier to entry won’t solve all of those problems, but it removes one that buyers have quietly absorbed for well over a decade.

Donalds is running for governor this year, so his motivation to deliver tangible wins for Floridians before a potential move to Tallahassee is not subtle. But whatever the political calculus, the policy outcome is real for buyers who have scraped together savings only to fall short of that 25% threshold.

Whether anyone can comfortably afford a mortgage by August, given current economic conditions, is a fair question to ask. But the structural fix matters regardless.

Elsewhere, it was a strong week for Brightline. While air travelers dealt with swollen TSA lines and airport chaos tied to ongoing staffing shortages, the passenger rail service quietly posted a ridership record. Between March 13 and 15, more than 40,000 passengers rode Brightline between Orlando, Miami and stations across South Florida.

CEO Patrick Goddard credited airport congestion as a key driver of the surge. The timing lined up with Spring Break crowds, the Miami Open, the World Baseball Classic, cruise traffic and the Palm Beach Boat Show, creating a rare convergence of travel demand. Brightline offered something airports couldn’t in that moment: predictability.

The company also leaned into family-friendly pricing, offering discounts for children, making the rail option easier to sell to families who were already frustrated with airports and not eager to fill a gas tank for a cross-state drive.

For a company that has spent years making the case that Floridians should think differently about how they get around, this was the kind of week that does the argument for them.

Down in Boca Raton, Andy Thomson and his team had a different kind of week. Thomson held an election-night lead of six votes in the Boca Raton mayor’s race, only to watch a machine recount trim that margin even further. That is the kind of lead that makes a campaign team age overnight.

The broader story this week is one of friction. Friction in airport terminals, friction in the condo market, friction in a too-close-to-call local race. Florida politics rarely sits still, and this week was no exception.

Donalds has handed himself a genuinely useful story heading into a competitive gubernatorial race. Brightline found a market that was ready for it. And somewhere in Boca Raton, lawyers are likely already reviewing ballots with magnifying glasses.

The 25% down payment rule was never discussed much in Tallahassee or Washington, but it shaped who could afford to stay in Florida and who couldn’t. Getting rid of it is the kind of unglamorous policy work that actually moves lives. Whether it comes in time for the next cycle of buyers is what the next few months will tell.