In the past, the Condo HOA could put to a vote of the owners if they wanted to do maintenance on major items, and most voted no, which created the issue. The new law states that 1) HOA must have reserves to cover the cost of maintenance and major known issues and 2) the HOA must pay a 3rd party to assess the complex, identify and assign costs to the major issues, and provide a timeline of when they must be fixed before they become critical. This means that most HOAs must collect millions in reserves. It is not that the condos will become cheap, it is that they will become unsellable. You will not be able to get financing or insurance on them if the HOA does not have the adequate reserves. It will become cheaper to write the building off and demolish it and start over, than to fix a lot of buildings. I would not buy some of them if they were free.
The smartest thing some of these condo boards could do right now is go out and get a long-term loan to cover these enormous capital expenditures. In most states, condo boards have so much power to collect assessments that banks consider them almost as risk-free as lending to the government.
Free until you receive a notice your share of the needed repairs is $100,000 ...