Florida Real Estate Crisis

[happyhoix]

You remember several years back that condo that collapsed in Florida, killing a bunch of people and destroying the building. Turned out, there had been significant structural issues that the Co Op board just ignored, due to how expensive it would be to fix it. 

There’s a law going into effect in January that requires the boards to have their properties inspected and to fix whatever’s wrong with the property - but that means that cost gets passed along to the home owners. One I heard of was 60 thousand dollars per unit. 

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13739993/florida-real-estate-crisis-condo-owners-slash-prices.html

This means people are rushing to sell their units prior to January 1st so they can avoid the big hit. 

Some are going after DeSantis for this, but really, it had to be done, to avoid another Surfside. You might make a case that the boards should have acted when some of these problems were smaller, resulting in a less expensive repair, but if you sue your own board, unless you can make the board members personally responsible, you’ll just have to pay that extra fee too. 

Add to that an insurance crisis where Floridians can’t afford their insurance hikes, and Florida stops looking like a paradise. 

[Cheesy FL-Vol]

Aug 20, 2024 13:15:55 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

You remember several years back that condo that collapsed in Florida, killing a bunch of people and destroying the building. Turned out, there had been significant structural issues that the Co Op board just ignored, due to how expensive it would be to fix it. 

There’s a law going into effect in January that requires the boards to have their properties inspected and to fix whatever’s wrong with the property - but that means that cost gets passed along to the home owners. One I heard of was 60 thousand dollars per unit. 

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13739993/florida-real-estate-crisis-condo-owners-slash-prices.html

This means people are rushing to sell their units prior to January 1st so they can avoid the big hit. 

Some are going after DeSantis for this, but really, it had to be done, to avoid another Surfside. You might make a case that the boards should have acted when some of these problems were smaller, resulting in a less expensive repair, but if you sue your own board, unless you can make the board members personally responsible, you’ll just have to pay that extra fee too. 

Add to that an insurance crisis where Floridians can’t afford their insurance hikes, and Florida stops looking like a paradise. 

According to some things I have read, some people are getting bills for 100k. 

[Opti]

The law has been in the works and some people sold earlier. I think back in 2023 a condo owner bemoaned the fact people were leaving in droves because this was coming and that his unit's worth would plummet.

From the URL-
ISG World recently reported that there were 20,293 condo listings in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade in the second quarter of the year, up from 8,353 in the same time frame in 2023.

Now DailyMail.com can reveal an estimated 360,000 property owners in south Florida alone - the home of the condo boom - may not be able to afford the repairs required by the new law.


In addition to that, there are what as known as "zombie" condos in FL and their numbers are increasing, These are properties where banks have started the foreclosure process but have not finished it. In many cases the owners are long gone and unaware they are still on the hook for property taxes etc. Climate change plus DeSantis is going to bring a massive drop in RE values across Florida which is likely in progress. This on the heels of greed is good Pandemic rental pricing in which I read of instances of rent renewal rates increasing by 60%. I forget where the article might be. It was an Apple News blurb I looked up later on the laptop.

[Cheesy FL-Vol]

Apparently some of these fees aren't even the repairs, for some, they are assessments!

[Cheesy FL-Vol]

DeSantis is trying out the "trump touch" on the state of Florida. He is a wonderful student of the "trash what you touch" methodology.

[Opti]

Aug 20, 2024 13:49:55 GMT -5 Cheesy FL-Vol said:

Apparently some of these fees aren't even the repairs, for some, they are assessments!

I believe most of them are assessments. Assessments for repairs and to beef up the deposit amount. I remember when storms came through and mom got a big assessment on her time share. I think it may have taken years just to give that one away.

I think it can be complex issue because at least in some cases the condo owners are part of an HOA and various firms can be hired to give a state of the structure report plus suggested remediation. 

[Opti]

Aug 20, 2024 14:02:21 GMT -5 Cheesy FL-Vol said:

DeSantis is trying out the "trump touch" on the state of Florida. He is a wonderful student of the "trash what you touch" methodology.

I think a tiered more moderate approach would have been smarter. DeSantis has how many more years left in his term?

[Tiny]

I imagine in 5 to 10 years we will be reading/seeing all the older (built in the 60's thru the 80's) ocean front condo towers being torn down and new bazillion dollar towers and "compounds" being built in their place.

I'm guessing the really wealthy people are waiting patiently the people who own condos they can no longer afford either abandon their condo OR get evicted from a building that's deemed dangerous and uninhabitable OR hold out to sell it to a "developer" for what amounts to pennies.

I'm sure "the New Gulf Coast" development plan(s) are circulating past the eyes of the world's billionaires.

How is this long term plan not a win-win for Florida??


IT would be interesting to find out how many of the ocean front "homeowners" who own units in the older towers actually live in their units year round and how many of them are American citizens and not foreigners.

And, yes, I do feel very bad for the people who picked up their roots, and retired in Florida and assumed it would be a dream retirement (they aren't snowbirds with a second home somewhere else).

[Tiny]

If you have a million dollar plus condo - is a 100K assessment really that bad in your big picture??


OK, I'm really really really jaded right now... I watch a you tube video about a horse auction. There were atleast 200 people in attendance (ok, some were family groups or guests) as well as on line and phone bidders.  The horses were trained and well bred.   The low end animals were selling in the 50K range and many of them were going in the 100K to 300K range.  The highest prices were going for geldings.   This was a 'little local auction".   I would estimate that about 5 to 10 million dollars traded hands over the course of the one day auction.   

It really sank in that there are LOTS of people in America with a LOT of disposable income to spend on expensive "hobbies". 

And yeah, the wealthy should pay more in taxes...     

[Opti]

Aug 21, 2024 20:02:40 GMT -5 Tiny said:

I imagine in 5 to 10 years we will be reading/seeing all the older (built in the 60's thru the 80's) ocean front condo towers being torn down and new bazillion dollar towers and "compounds" being built in their place.

I'm guessing the really wealthy people are waiting patiently the people who own condos they can no longer afford either abandon their condo OR get evicted from a building that's deemed dangerous and uninhabitable OR hold out to sell it to a "developer" for what amounts to pennies.

I'm sure "the New Gulf Coast" development plan(s) are circulating past the eyes of the world's billionaires.

How is this long term plan not a win-win for Florida??


IT would be interesting to find out how many of the ocean front "homeowners" who own units in the older towers actually live in their units year round and how many of them are American citizens and not foreigners.

And, yes, I do feel very bad for the people who picked up their roots, and retired in Florida and assumed it would be a dream retirement (they aren't snowbirds with a second home somewhere else).

Since climate change is increasing not slowing down yet, they do not know what to build for. It might become a conservative rich people mecca even more so than it has already been. However if they price out regular folks there will be no one to do the grunt work and conveniences like grocery stores and gas stations might not be there because the land will be too expensive to build there.

I agree buildings from that time period will likely be torn down and rebuilt. But like NJ teardowns, that means it pushes people on the lower end of the economic scale and makes it only affordable for possibly the top 20% of earners or higher. Not sure if that is a good strategy overall for all of the Florida coast.

[djAdvocate]

Aug 20, 2024 13:22:55 GMT -5 Cheesy FL-Vol said:

Aug 20, 2024 13:15:55 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

You remember several years back that condo that collapsed in Florida, killing a bunch of people and destroying the building. Turned out, there had been significant structural issues that the Co Op board just ignored, due to how expensive it would be to fix it. 

There’s a law going into effect in January that requires the boards to have their properties inspected and to fix whatever’s wrong with the property - but that means that cost gets passed along to the home owners. One I heard of was 60 thousand dollars per unit. 

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13739993/florida-real-estate-crisis-condo-owners-slash-prices.html

This means people are rushing to sell their units prior to January 1st so they can avoid the big hit. 

Some are going after DeSantis for this, but really, it had to be done, to avoid another Surfside. You might make a case that the boards should have acted when some of these problems were smaller, resulting in a less expensive repair, but if you sue your own board, unless you can make the board members personally responsible, you’ll just have to pay that extra fee too. 

Add to that an insurance crisis where Floridians can’t afford their insurance hikes, and Florida stops looking like a paradise. 

According to some things I have read, some people are getting bills for 100k. 

i am not sure what you mean by IT, here, happy.  WHAT had to be done?

[Cheesy FL-Vol]

Aug 22, 2024 12:51:56 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

Aug 20, 2024 13:22:55 GMT -5 Cheesy FL-Vol said:

According to some things I have read, some people are getting bills for 100k. 

i am not sure what you mean by IT, here, happy.  WHAT had to be done?

If you want happy to notice your inquiry, you might want to tag her because you quoted me. 

[djAdvocate]

i am a patient man, Cheesy.

[pulmonarymd]

This problem is a perfect example of the chickens coming home to roost. Republicans believe that government regulation is bad. So who insures that buildings are built to code, and boards do their job? The private sector? Yeah, they will do the right thing. Add the insurance crisis down there, and you will see more homeowners getting insurance through their state program, and the “tax” on private home owners policies getting larger. So much for conservative utopia

[djAdvocate]

they will end up socializing insurance.

that is how this story ends.

[pulmonarymd]

I guess there is good socialism and bad socialism

[happyhoix]

Aug 22, 2024 12:51:56 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

Aug 20, 2024 13:22:55 GMT -5 Cheesy FL-Vol said:

According to some things I have read, some people are getting bills for 100k. 

i am not sure what you mean by IT, here, happy.  WHAT had to be done?

Some of the articles I read about the new law requiring condos to be inspected and then to fix the defects, which is resulting in the condo owners being hit with some big bills, seemed to be blaming DeSantis, I guess because he was governor when the law went into effect. 

However, in this case, I’m not sure what else they think the State should do. A bunch of people died in Surfside - and if I remember right, they had several inspections that pointed out the defects in the structure (I remember the parking garage had some huge cracks in it) but they didn’t fix them because it was so expensive. 

I’m not sure how else they should handle it - clearly ignoring the problems can be fatal. Should the state step in and evict people from their condos if they refuse to pay for the repairs? Tear down the condos and sell the property, then divide the sale price between the owners? Set up a special fund from orange juice sales to pay for the repairs (and why should the condo owners get tax dollars when the people who lose their houses to hurricanes don’t?).  

There just doesn’t seem to be a good way to handle this. I don’t like DeSantis, but I’m not sure what else he could have done. 

[djAdvocate]

i get your point.

ultimately, the fault probably lies with either the contractors or the inspectors or both. that means that either the contractors or the state should be liable for the defects. until the contractors are left penniless, they should pay, and then the state should step in.

i can't think of any rationale for the homeowner paying. substandard housing should not be their fault unless they were the ones that put it together.

my opinion. anyone else?

[pulmonarymd]

The issue is 2 fold. Some of it is substandard housing. But there is also the issue of deferred maintenance and inadequate reserve funds. Many condo boards do not do unpopular things. People do not like what the current board says, so the people who are unhappy, get on the board, and ignore the recommendations that are made, do not collect the funds, and defer maintenance. Why should others pay for that.

Finally, many of these buildings are decades old. Florida has had lax building standards. These buildings may have been built to code, but they deteriorated in a predictable fashion, and were not maintained. Why should taxpayers pay for that?

[tbop77]

Well...yeah, they want to force these condo owners out so developers can build luxury condos on those prime pieces of real estate.  They have been trying to buy them out for years and finally got a law passed so they can force them out.


www.npr.org/2024/07/29/nx-s1-5040256/a-court-decision-worries-developers-eyeing-floridas-aging-condos

Look, FL is becoming the Republicans dream come true.  Two classes of people, rich and the rest working to service them.  We bought a home in 2018 to snowbird in the winter months.  Our property taxes were around $2k, home insurance $2.5k per year.  We sold at the end of last year, taxes had risen to $5.5k and insurance $6k.  How can any middle class family afford almost $1k for just taxes and insurance on a home?  

[Tiny]

Aug 23, 2024 6:03:39 GMT -5 tbop77 said:

Well...yeah, they want to force these condo owners out so developers can build luxury condos on those prime pieces of real estate.  They have been trying to buy them out for years and finally got a law passed so they can force them out.


www.npr.org/2024/07/29/nx-s1-5040256/a-court-decision-worries-developers-eyeing-floridas-aging-condos

Look, FL is becoming the Republicans dream come true.  Two classes of people, rich and the rest working to service them.  We bought a home in 2018 to snowbird in the winter months.  Our property taxes were around $2k, home insurance $2.5k per year.  We sold at the end of last year, taxes had risen to $5.5k and insurance $6k.  How can any middle class family afford almost $1k for just taxes and insurance on a home?  

That 2 classes of people in Florida is what I saw when I bought a townhouse in 2010 (short sale, bottom of the market ).    Florida has an odd "economy" in places.   In the large "retirement" oriented city my family moved to, the high paying jobs are:  doctor, some levels of nurses, business owner, some real estate agents (due to the never ending buying and selling of properties).    Fire/Police/Teachers are all low paying jobs.  I'm not sure being in a trade is a well paying job.  There's plenty of work but it's the business owner who gets the money and it trickles down to the people doing the work.   

There are lots of people with lots of money who aren't working (retired people) who don't want to pay much for services/entertainment/daily stuff surrounded by just as many everyday people who need to make a living who are NOT paid well. 

From the couple of areas I'm familiar with - Florida is a very weird place. 

In Florida's defense, in the past, many of the "snowbird" cities/areas had transitory populations - and the snowbirds (from America and forgien countries) didn't need or want "palatial" "high end" "dream" homes that they would be staying in for 3 months of the year when their house would be "shuttered" or empty for the other 9 months.       Florida was "marketed" as an inexpensive place to OWN a second home (that you would use for a few months out of the year).   The houses weren't that expensive or big or well made - because they were used for short periods of time and I think they were bought and sold often without the value of the property going up or down much.  

[thyme4change]

Aug 21, 2024 20:03:53 GMT -5 Tiny said:

If you have a million dollar plus condo - is a 100K assessment really that bad in your big picture??


OK, I'm really really really jaded right now... I watch a you tube video about a horse auction. There were atleast 200 people in attendance (ok, some were family groups or guests) as well as on line and phone bidders.  The horses were trained and well bred.   The low end animals were selling in the 50K range and many of them were going in the 100K to 300K range.  The highest prices were going for geldings.   This was a 'little local auction".   I would estimate that about 5 to 10 million dollars traded hands over the course of the one day auction.   

It really sank in that there are LOTS of people in America with a LOT of disposable income to spend on expensive "hobbies". 

And yeah, the wealthy should pay more in taxes...     

If they had the right lineage they may be profitable for breeding.

But, that just means there are others with big money to buy horse sperm, create a baby and sell that for profit.

The wealth gap is out of control and we are in a dangerous spot.

[haapai]

Aug 23, 2024 10:34:42 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Aug 21, 2024 20:03:53 GMT -5 Tiny said:

If you have a million dollar plus condo - is a 100K assessment really that bad in your big picture??


OK, I'm really really really jaded right now... I watch a you tube video about a horse auction. There were atleast 200 people in attendance (ok, some were family groups or guests) as well as on line and phone bidders.  The horses were trained and well bred.   The low end animals were selling in the 50K range and many of them were going in the 100K to 300K range.  The highest prices were going for geldings.   This was a 'little local auction".   I would estimate that about 5 to 10 million dollars traded hands over the course of the one day auction.   

It really sank in that there are LOTS of people in America with a LOT of disposable income to spend on expensive "hobbies". 

And yeah, the wealthy should pay more in taxes...     

If they had the right lineage they may be profitable for breeding.

But, that just means there are others with big money to buy horse sperm, create a baby and sell that for profit.

The wealth gap is out of control and we are in a dangerous spot.

I don't think that you know what a gelding is. 

[Opti]

Aug 22, 2024 20:51:05 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

I guess there is good socialism and bad socialism

 If you are a business owner and take advantage of it, I guess they call it good.
Its probably considered bad if you can't take advantage of it but that non-Christian guy can or that POC woman can.

[thyme4change]

Aug 22, 2024 23:06:26 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

i get your point.

ultimately, the fault probably lies with either the contractors or the inspectors or both. that means that either the contractors or the state should be liable for the defects. until the contractors are left penniless, they should pay, and then the state should step in.

i can't think of any rationale for the homeowner paying. substandard housing should not be their fault unless they were the ones that put it together.

my opinion. anyone else?

Home owners have to pay for maintenance. If these condos are 30 or 50 or 70 years old, it probably isn’t the original contractor’s fault.

[Opti]

Aug 23, 2024 10:39:39 GMT -5 haapai said:

Aug 23, 2024 10:34:42 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

If they had the right lineage they may be profitable for breeding.

But, that just means there are others with big money to buy horse sperm, create a baby and sell that for profit.

The wealth gap is out of control and we are in a dangerous spot.

I don't think that you know what a gelding is. 

Are these racehorses or work horses? Geldings might go for more money because the procedure is already done, and the horse's personality should not change much. 

[Opti]

Aug 23, 2024 10:40:44 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Aug 22, 2024 23:06:26 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

i get your point.

ultimately, the fault probably lies with either the contractors or the inspectors or both. that means that either the contractors or the state should be liable for the defects. until the contractors are left penniless, they should pay, and then the state should step in.

i can't think of any rationale for the homeowner paying. substandard housing should not be their fault unless they were the ones that put it together.

my opinion. anyone else?

Home owners have to pay for maintenance. If these condos are 30 or 50 or 70 years old, it probably isn’t the original contractor’s fault.

The homeowner can't analyze how the footings and base concrete was laid in though. That's the tricky bit of these Florida condos and similar where you inspect your unit but can't see the foundation and what's happening below ground to support the entire building and your specific condo.

[resolution]

Aug 23, 2024 6:03:39 GMT -5 tbop77 said:

Well...yeah, they want to force these condo owners out so developers can build luxury condos on those prime pieces of real estate.  They have been trying to buy them out for years and finally got a law passed so they can force them out.


www.npr.org/2024/07/29/nx-s1-5040256/a-court-decision-worries-developers-eyeing-floridas-aging-condos

Maybe that is why Trump is saying that rising sea levels will create more beachfront property. I just assumed he didn't understand what a rising sea level was, but it could be that he knows about some development plans.

x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1797249076758507742

[djAdvocate]

thanks, everyone. you convinced me that my argument is flawed. the strength of your arguments won me over.

[happyhoix]

Aug 23, 2024 10:39:39 GMT -5 haapai said:

Aug 23, 2024 10:34:42 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

If they had the right lineage they may be profitable for breeding.

But, that just means there are others with big money to buy horse sperm, create a baby and sell that for profit.

The wealth gap is out of control and we are in a dangerous spot.

I don't think that you know what a gelding is. 

Once, we drove by a field of mares with their fillies and colts and DH said ‘oh look at the horses and ponies.’

Very much a suburban boy 😉