diff --git a/spring-boot-project/spring-boot-autoconfigure/src/main/java/org/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/condition/ConditionalOnExpression.java b/spring-boot-project/spring-boot-autoconfigure/src/main/java/org/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/condition/ConditionalOnExpression.java
index bdef69f3b7d..88547a7e168 100644
--- a/spring-boot-project/spring-boot-autoconfigure/src/main/java/org/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/condition/ConditionalOnExpression.java
+++ b/spring-boot-project/spring-boot-autoconfigure/src/main/java/org/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/condition/ConditionalOnExpression.java
@@ -40,6 +40,10 @@ public @interface ConditionalOnExpression {
 	/**
 	 * The SpEL expression to evaluate. Expression should return {@code true} if the
 	 * condition passes or {@code false} if it fails.
+	 * <p>
+	 * NOTE: Referencing a bean in the expression will cause that bean to be initialized
+	 * very early in context refresh processing. As a result, the bean will load with
+	 * default property values.
 	 * @return the SpEL expression
 	 */
 	String value() default "true";
diff --git a/spring-boot-project/spring-boot-docs/src/docs/asciidoc/features/developing-auto-configuration.adoc b/spring-boot-project/spring-boot-docs/src/docs/asciidoc/features/developing-auto-configuration.adoc
index df245f4ee0a..2fdbc2c0e20 100644
--- a/spring-boot-project/spring-boot-docs/src/docs/asciidoc/features/developing-auto-configuration.adoc
+++ b/spring-boot-project/spring-boot-docs/src/docs/asciidoc/features/developing-auto-configuration.adoc
@@ -143,6 +143,7 @@ This condition will not match for applications that are run with an embedded ser
 ==== SpEL Expression Conditions
 The `@ConditionalOnExpression` annotation lets configuration be included based on the result of a {spring-framework-docs}/core.html#expressions[SpEL expression].
 
+NOTE: Referencing a bean in the expression will cause that bean to be initialized very early in context refresh processing. As a result, the bean will load with default property values.
 
 
 [[features.developing-auto-configuration.testing]]