This is a total disaster for Florida condo owners! "The Dec. 31 deadline has passed for condo associations to either have fully funded reserve accounts or plans to do so. Now, as assessments start trickling in, aging and poorly maintained buildings — despite the lack of clear legal consequences for failing to fund reserves — are continuing to face declining values and rising insurance premiums, driving the market toward a financial cliff. The market is now flooded with aging units. There were 19,000 active condo listings in South Florida at the end of last year, 86% of which are condos 30 years or older, according to an ISGWorld report. “That inventory just keeps growing every single month in MLS because the people that own those units just want to get out,” ISGWorld CEO Craig Studnicky said in a YouTube video accompanying the report. “The problem is that nobody wants to buy them, and if there are a few people that want to buy them, there certainly are no mortgage lenders that want to lend. So, that inventory is almost useless for us at the moment.” Peter Zalewski, founder of Miami-based real estate consultancy firm Condo Vultures, refers to this era as the Florida condo association “financial cliff.” Following the deadline, owners who are either unable or unwilling to pay rising maintenance fees risk falling behind as associations — now mandated to enforce stricter financial accountability — tighten their oversight. “They're forcing the foreclosure. They're forcing the short sales. Those people who still remain in the building have to suddenly pay more to keep the building afloat. Services get cut, and it turns into a doom loop,” Zalewski said. “Think of a plane that's going down, like back in the old school with a propeller. They're kind of circling before they crash.” https://lnkd.in/eaSrtdss