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WHERE WILL THE FLORIDA CONDO MARKET GO?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published November 18, 2022
The forecast for condo
sales is definitely not very “rosy”! Inflation, outrageous high
interest-rates, seriously increasing insurance premiums and the
provisions of the “CONDO SAFETY BILL SB-4D” will
put a serious financial burden on sellers and buyers.
There will still be a good
market for condo units in buildings that are new – or reasonable
new – and units in associations that have fully funded reserves
and who kept the building well maintained.
The problem will come for
folks who live in badly maintained buildings with no – or little
– reserve funds who have to sell because they are unable to pay
the highly increased monthly maintenance fees.
What will these families
do? Sell now to “vultures” preying on these families who have no
choice but to sell for a very low price or hang on to their
homes until the association forecloses on their homes for
non-payment of dues?
Many of these folks are
now trying to blame the legislature. Well, even if the
legislature is to blame for many of the serious problems we are
all facing today, but this is not really one of them. The
statutes made fully-funded reserves more or less voluntary and
it was the owners choice to not fund the reserves. They had to
vote in favor of not fully-funding reserves – and that decision
is now coming back to haunt them.
On the other hand, the
legislature had to act on the collapse of the Champlain Towers
South that killed 98 people. In all honesty: This kind of
legislation should have been enacted many years ago. Buildings
have to be safe and maintenance is expensive. The fact that many
associations have tried to keep the maintenance fees
artificially low was really not a good decision and the owners
will now pay the price for many years of negligence.
Will there be a reasonable
solution? I doubt it – but time will tell!
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Jan Bergemann is president of Cyber Citizens For Justice,
Florida
's largest state-wide property owners' advocacy group.
CCFJ works on legislation to help owners living in
community
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associations. He moved to
Florida
in 1995 - hoping to retire. He moved into a HOA, where the
developer cheated the homeowners and used the association dues
for his own purposes. End of retirement!
CCFJ was born in the year 2000, when some owners met in
Tallahassee
- finding out that power is only in numbers. Bergemann was a
member of Governor Jeb Bush's HOA Task force in 2003/2004.
The organization has two websites to inform interested
Florida
homeowners and condo owners:
News Website: http://www.ccfj.net/.
Educational Website: http://www.ccfjfoundation.net/.
We think that only owners can really represent owners, since all
service providers surely have a different interest! We are
trying to create owner-friendly laws, but the best laws are
useless without enforcement. And enforcement is totally lacking
in
Florida
!
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