You were approved. Your income is documented, your score is fine, your contract is signed. Then you went under contract on a place near Mill Avenue or south of the 202 and the loan quietly died.
Nobody gave you a straight answer. Something about waiting on HOA documents.
In Tempe, the borrower is usually fine. It is the project that failed, and the reason is the same thing that makes Tempe attractive in the first place.
Why Tempe specifically
Tempe is the densest of the East Valley cities, built around Arizona State University and hemmed in by its neighbors, so it has far more attached housing than Mesa, Gilbert or Chandler. It also has, for the same reason, an unusually high share of units held as rentals rather than lived in by their owners.
That combination is exactly what agency guidelines were not written to accommodate. Conventional financing requires a condominium project to be warrantable, and the common failure points are:
- Investor concentration. Too many units rented rather than owner-occupied.
- Single-entity ownership. One owner holding too large a share of the building.
- Commercial space above the permitted share, which is the mixed-use product along and around Mill.
- Pending litigation involving the association.
Fail any one and the unit becomes unfinanceable by most lenders, regardless of your income, credit or down payment.
What the physician program does and does not reach
The program itself is strong. Under CMG Financial's MedPro Premier guidelines (NMLS #1820, revised 09/11/2026): 100% financing to $1,500,000 at a 680 score or to $2,000,000 at 720, no mortgage insurance at any loan-to-value, and qualifying income from a fully executed employment contract.
Two limits matter in Tempe more than anywhere else:
100% financing is one unit only. A large share of Tempe's attractive inventory is attached, and the top of the leverage table is written around a single unit primary residence.
Condominium treatment is program-specific and geography-specific. The alternative MedPro Advantage programme (revised 07/16/2025) lists condominiums in Florida as outright ineligible, which is a useful reminder that condo rules are not general. What a program does with a given Tempe project is a question with a specific answer, and the answer arrives from the questionnaire rather than from the listing.
There is a route for projects that fail. Non-warrantable condo programs exist precisely for buildings with commercial space, investor concentration, single-entity ownership or pending litigation, and they finance them at reduced leverage. A declined project is a constraint on the loan, not a verdict on the building.
Ask this before you write the offer
The signal that you have hit the problem is silence. Your lender orders the condo questionnaire and the process goes quiet for days, then the loan is declined or repriced with a vague explanation.
Ask directly, early: is this project warrantable, and if not, which characteristic failed? It is a specific question with a specific answer, and it decides whether you need a different program or a different building.
Ask it before the appraisal if you can. An appraisal on a project that cannot be financed is money spent learning what the questionnaire would have told you.
What to gather:
- The condo questionnaire, completed by the HOA, including the commercial space percentage
- The HOA budget and reserve study
- Litigation disclosure, including who is plaintiff and who is defendant
- Owner-occupancy and investor concentration figures
- Single-entity ownership detail
Associations vary enormously in how fast they produce these. In a student-adjacent market with a lot of investor-owned units, start early, because a slow association can cost you a contract timeline on its own.
The Tempe commute case
Worth saying plainly: many physicians live in Tempe and work somewhere else. HonorHealth Tempe Medical Center, the 74 bed full-service hospital formerly known as Tempe St. Luke's, has operated under HonorHealth since 2024, and it is the hospital in town. But Banner Desert is a short drive east, Chandler Regional is south, and the central Phoenix campuses are a straight run up the 143 or the light rail.
So Tempe is frequently the compromise in a two-career household: central to everything, denser than its neighbors, and priced accordingly. If that is your situation, the property question above is the one that decides your search, not the program question.
And if you are looking at detached Tempe housing rather than attached, most of this page stops applying and the ordinary rules take over: ratio capped at 50% at 95% loan-to-value or below and 45% above it, reserves of zero months at 95% or below to $1,500,000 and three months above 95%, and a 90.01% minimum loan-to-value that makes a large down payment disqualifying rather than helpful.
Do this in order
- Get the project name and ask for a warrantability read before you write.
- If it is non-warrantable, find out which characteristic failed and price the alternative.
- If you are buying detached, run the ratio at 95% and 100% and take the tier that clears with room.
- Confirm your start date and count gap reserves if you are closing early.
- Do not order an appraisal on a project nobody has checked.
Common questions
Why do Tempe condo purchases fall apart? Usually because the project is non-warrantable: too many rented units, one owner holding too large a share, commercial space above the permitted level, or pending litigation involving the association. The buyer is generally fine.
Can I still buy if the project is non-warrantable? Frequently yes, through a non-warrantable condo program, at reduced leverage. A declined project is a constraint on which loan works, not a verdict on the building.
Can I use 100% physician financing on a Tempe condo? 100% financing is one unit only, and condominium treatment is program-specific. Confirm how a given project is treated before you write rather than after the appraisal.
When should I ask about warrantability? Before you write the offer, and certainly before you pay for an appraisal. Ask which characteristic failed if the answer is no.
I work at Banner Desert but want to live in Tempe. Does that matter? Not to the loan. Occupancy is about where you live, not where you work. The property questions on this page are what decide a Tempe file.
Related reading
- Physician and medical professional home loans, the full index for this topic
- Physician Home Loans in Chandler: Dual-Income Households and the Co-Borrower Rule
- Non-Warrantable Condo Financing in Scottsdale: Why the Building Gets Declined and How the Loan Still Closes
- Physician Home Loans in Scottsdale: How Doctors Buy With No Down Payment and No Mortgage Insurance
Why bring this file to us
- We check the project before the offer. In Tempe the building is what usually fails, and it is knowable in a day rather than after the appraisal.
- We carry programs that finance these projects, so a declined building is a structure problem rather than the end of the search.
- We read the questionnaire ourselves, including investor concentration and litigation, rather than waiting for an underwriter to translate it.
- Broker model. Multiple investors rather than one bank's shelf, which is what a file like this needs when the first answer is no.
- You talk to the principal. Ricky Khamis is President of EPiQ Lending and a Certified Mortgage Planner, NMLS #173141, originating mortgages since 1999. 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 project name before you write. In Tempe that one question answers more than your income does.
Program figures in this post come from the CMG Financial (NMLS #1820) guideline set named above, as published on the revision date given. CMG Financial is the parent company of EPiQ Lending. These figures describe one investor's program at one point in time. Other investors price and underwrite the same borrower differently, guidelines change without notice, and nothing here is an offer of any specific program or terms. Confirm current eligibility on your own file before you plan around any of it.
Equal Housing Opportunity. This is general information, not a commitment to lend or an offer to extend credit. Rates, terms, and program guidelines change and depend on credit approval, property appraisal, income and asset verification, and other qualifying factors. Not all applicants will qualify. Non-QM, asset-based and business purpose financing carry different pricing, terms and consumer protections than agency financing. Consult your tax advisor regarding the tax treatment of any income or distribution strategy.
Find out what you qualify for before you start looking
Tell me where you are in training or practice and I will tell you which structure fits your file, what it needs, and what it does not. No credit pull to have the conversation.
