Posted on 12/18/2023 7:36:03 AM PST by devane617
Florida condo owners are about to get hit by the perfect financial storm. With insurance rates already going up as much as 300% for some buildings along with recent changes to the Florida Condominium Act and new changes going into effect in 2025, many are going to face tough times in the coming months and year.
Not as if the insurance will cover anything anyway.
I live in Florida and own a house and condo, the idea the HOA is a profit center is not true at all, HOA boards are required to post a budget of revenue and expenses, the meetings are open to the public.
Has this issue ever happened, sure it has, but it’s not widespread of common, this entire thread is full of posts by people who I believe have never owned a condo, much less one in Florida.
I live in Florida and own a house and condo, the idea the HOA is a profit center is not true at all, HOA boards are required to post a budget of revenue and expenses, the meetings are open to the public.
Has this issue ever happened, sure it has, but it’s not widespread of common, this entire thread is full of posts by people who I believe have never owned a condo, much less one in Florida.
And if you are in an older condo development, you’re screwed, they are basically starting to condemn the older buildings, so investors can come in, tear it down and build a newer modern building.
Depends on the location and the common area expenses, I live in Florida and my wife, and I own a house in a gated community with guards 247/7/365 and a waterfront Condo.
The HOA fees of the two added together would be far less than a mortgage payment on an average Florida home in today’s market.
HOA’s have certainly become bloated over the last 30 years. What were once likely mostly volunteer positions have been taken over by management companies with full time careers, benefits, and pensions.
Also contractors and sub-contractors (of which I was one for 25 years) don’t come cheap.
My father moved down to Palm Bay in 2013. Paid $223,000 for a nice house with a pool and a mother-in-law bedroom suite. Now on Zillow it is valued over $500,000. It’s basically a wall of concrete cinder blocks and a concrete floor with a roof on it. No way is it worth a half million dollars.
In my case, that is not correct, our condo was built in 1989, it’s not new, we are not screwed.
A building not properly maintained might be screwed but that is not a common practice, especially when the condo complexes are relatively small and the owners are actively involved.
That might be true in some cases, even though it’s not required by Florida law to have a management company every HOA I’ve been involved with does and it’s a good thing they do.
HOA boards are voluntary, trying to get someone to volunteer to manage a Condo complex of any size would be insane, you pay a management company to handle day-to-day issues of the owner, account for the money, etc.
Asking an individual owner on a volunteer basis to do that is not only stupid, but would be impossible to sustain.
You pressed the “Post” button twice. That will do it! 😎
I realize that, but 30 years ago it wasn’t like that.
We actually didn’t have a management company until less than a decade ago. It was just board members having meetings and contracting lawn, irrigation, etc. jobs.
😂😂😂
In addition, older seaside condos are subject to salt and water causing deterioration of concrete and reinforcing steel. Often, by the time the issue becomes obvious and unavoidable, the repair costs can be extraordinary and beyond the means of the owners.
The bright side is that with escalating land values, it may be possible to buy out the existing owners, tear an old condo down, and then build a larger and more valuable building in its place. Or, to put it another way, the cure for outdated development is to redevelop.
In today’s world it would be impossible to ask a volunteer to account for potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars, answer day-to-day questions of the owner, negotiate contracts with outside vendors, etc.
I wouldn’t trust an owner to do that, then every so often they quit and looking another owner to take over a thankless job.
I watched, thanks for posting. I just sold a condo in New Smyrna Beach (thank you Jesus) for top dollar. Our monthly dues had jumped to 1030 and they weren’t near done with raising it. We were assessed an add’l $25k for wall installation and that assessment came before they even had completed plans or bids!! I feel certain that $25k is going to turn into $35k+.
Bottom line, our government in FLA better get off their asses and work on the insurance problem here. It’s not going to be pretty
We were the same age. She called me her “Superstar”. I’ll let you do the math.
Crickets until post-WW2.
“Bottom line, our government in FLA better get off their asses and work on the insurance problem here. It’s not going to be pretty”
Yea, I agree and that is the point of my post, but it quickly evolved into a HOA bashing session. Through no fault of their own many elderly fixed-income Floridians are finding themselves in a big mess and I believe the state has not done enough to inform the citizens exactly why our rates have gone up 4x, 5x, 6x. We’ve had hurricanes since people have lived in Florida and we’ve never experienced such increases as we see now. Bash people for moving to Florida all day long if that makes you feel good, but residents are not in control of rising housing costs or the lack of a rising income to match.
What you experienced is the reason I would never join a HOA.
It is giving Karens the authority to raise my housing costs to the sky.
While it is true they may not choose to do so—why take the chance?
in a nutshell, the insurance companies are leaving in droves (ie dwindling supply) and construction is off the charts (ie increasing demand). And, in that nutshell is this: we desperately need tort reform in the state of Florida. The lawyers are cleaning the clocks of ins co’s and us, by suing anyone and everyone, hoping for settlement checks to float their business. And it works. Ins co’s don’t want to go to trial so they settle with everyone. It’s a never ending sh*t show.
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