In Old Town Scottsdale the building gets approved before you do. You can have perfect credit, documented income and money in the bank, and still lose the deal because the condominium project fails lender review over its owner-occupancy ratio, its commercial square footage, or pending litigation you never heard about.
That is the single most important thing to understand about buying here, and it is the opposite of how buyers think financing works.
What Old Town actually is
Old Town is Scottsdale's original downtown and its entertainment core: the bar and restaurant district, the Scottsdale Waterfront, Fashion Square, the arts district, Museum of the West, and the canal path. It is walkable in a way almost nothing else in the Valley is, and that walkability is exactly what drives demand from second-home buyers, short-term rental investors and people who want to leave the car parked.
The inventory reflects it. A large share is attached: mid-rise and high-rise condominiums, mixed-use buildings with retail or restaurants at street level, and townhome-style product. That mix is what makes the financing distinctive.
Realistically, you should also know what you are buying into. The bar district is genuinely loud on weekend nights, and how far that reaches depends heavily on which block you are on. Walk the specific address on a Friday night, not just a Tuesday afternoon. That is not a lending question, but it is the one thing buyers most often regret not doing.
Gate one: the project, not you
Every attached unit is subject to condominium project review, and the project can fail regardless of how strong you are.
Owner-occupancy ratio. Investor-heavy projects get restricted or fail outright on agency financing. In a submarket built around second homes and rentals, this is not a rare finding, it is a common one.
Commercial square footage. Agency guidelines cap the share of a project's total square footage that can be non-residential. A building with a full ground-floor restaurant and retail row can exceed it. Old Town has a lot of exactly that product.
Reserves and the budget. Associations are generally expected to allocate a meaningful share of the budget to replacement reserves. Underfunded associations fail review.
Litigation. Pending construction defect litigation is frequently a hard stop on agency financing.
Delinquencies and single-entity ownership. Too many owners behind on dues, or one entity holding too large a share of units, will restrict the project.
Condotel classification. If the building operates like a hotel, with a front desk, rental desk services, daily housekeeping or mandatory rental pooling, it can be classified as a condotel and fall outside agency financing entirely. Some Old Town product sits close to this line.
The instruction that follows: get the HOA questionnaire, budget, reserve study and master insurance certificate before you write the offer. Not during inspection. A project that fails agency review is not necessarily unfinanceable, but it becomes a different loan at a different price, and you want that information while you still have leverage on price.
There is more detail on how each of these fails in Scottsdale Luxury Condo Financing.
Gate two: the rental question
If any part of your plan involves renting the property, short-term or otherwise, two separate rulebooks apply and the stricter one wins.
The City of Scottsdale regulates short-term rentals, with requirements around registration and licensing, emergency contact information, notification of nearby properties and insurance. Arizona municipalities have revised these rules more than once. Confirm current requirements directly with the city rather than from a forum or a listing description.
The association can restrict or prohibit rentals independently, and commonly sets a minimum lease term. An association minimum of thirty days or more ends a nightly rental plan no matter what the city allows.
Ask for the association's rental policy in writing before you remove contingencies. If your investment case depends entirely on nightly rental and the association forbids it, the financing was never the problem.
How much of that income a lender will actually count is a separate question, covered in Spring Training, the Open, and Your Loan.
Gate three: how you are classified
Old Town buyers are frequently second-home buyers or investors, and those are different loan classifications with different down payment requirements and different pricing. A property rented nightly for most of the year is not a second home whatever you call it on the application.
State your actual intent. Misrepresenting occupancy to get better terms is mortgage fraud, not a tactic. If the numbers only work under a classification that does not match your use, you need a different property or a different structure. See Second Home or Investment Property in Scottsdale.
What your file needs to look like
Above the conforming loan limit, which much of the desirable Old Town inventory clears, the standard tightens: more reserves held after closing, tighter ratio tolerances, and full documentation of everything. Jumbo Loans in Scottsdale covers where those files die.
If you are self-employed, your income gets rebuilt from two years of filed returns using Fannie Mae Form 1084 or Freddie Mac Form 91, and the number that comes out is usually well below the one in your head. The mechanics, and the structures that work when the returns fall short, are in Self-Employed and Buying in Old Town Scottsdale.
And whatever the property type, add up the full monthly obligation stack before you fall in love with a price. See HOA Dues, Club Dues and Assessments.
Your Old Town checklist
Before you write the offer:
- HOA questionnaire, budget, reserve study, master insurance certificate. Every time.
- Owner-occupancy percentage and commercial square footage share. The two that most often fail here.
- Litigation disclosure.
- Written rental policy, including any minimum lease term.
- City of Scottsdale short-term rental requirements, confirmed at the source, if that is your plan.
- Walk the block on a weekend night.
Before you shop at all:
- Get fully underwritten, not pre-qualified. A pre-qualification is a calculator. An underwritten pre-approval means someone has already read your documents.
- Decide occupancy honestly and size your down payment to it.
Why bring this file to us
- We read the HOA package before you are committed, not after your appraisal fee is spent.
- We tell you what the rental income is worth to a lender before you write, which is the number that decides the deal.
- Broker model. Multiple investors rather than one bank's shelf, which is exactly what a non-warrantable project needs.
- The full toolkit, agency through bank statement, asset depletion, DSCR and no-ratio non-QM, chosen on the file rather than on inventory.
- You talk to the principal. Ricky Khamis is President of EPiQ Lending, NMLS #173141, lending in Arizona since 1999 and a 2025 Presidents Club Winner at CMG Home Loans. Direct line: (480) 999-9842.
EPiQ Lending is NMLS #1936984, at 7975 N. Hayden Road, Suite A-101 in Scottsdale. Verify all of it before you trust any of it: Ricky's EPiQ Lending profile, the Scottsdale branch, and the license itself at NMLS Consumer Access. Hold every lender to that standard, including us.
Send me the building before you write in Old Town and I will tell you whether the project clears.
Equal Housing Opportunity. This is general information, not a commitment to lend or an offer to extend credit. Short-term rental regulations vary by municipality and association and change over time; confirm current requirements with the City of Scottsdale and the applicable association. Rates, terms, and program guidelines change and depend on credit approval, property appraisal, and other qualifying factors. Not all applicants will qualify. Non-QM and DSCR financing carries different pricing and terms than agency financing.
