1-Minute Building Health Advice: Don't be like Florida Condos

Building insights in under 1 minute:

1. 1. "You can't slow down Father Time, but Mother Nature always wins." My new favorite quote regarding aging components in a building which will eventually fail, and if you don't deal with them, the structure will return to dust and the building will cease to exist. Jungle brush will eventually bury these dilapidated structures like the ancient lost Mayan temples. Maintenance, and jungle pruning is required on your building. (Not to be dramatic)
   2. The complaint tone in the article, and deadline of 12/31/24, is boards "can no longer waive their reserve requirements for funding." This is absurd! Think about it for a minute, if you know you have to replace a building component due to age or failure, apparently in the past they could just "waive" that requirement and ignore it!  We know buildings don't heal themselves and Florida had a tragic example of deferred maintenance in 2021 with the Champlain Towers (Surfside, FL) collapse caused by deferred maintenance and the board ignoring their experts who raised significant problems needing repair - or waiving that requirement to fix things. I fully understand the financial issues and stress this will have on the condo owners, but they have taken a 20-30 year break on not funding reserves properly, and now Mother Nature and the Tax Collector are knocking. The previous boards who have "kicked this can" of current bills down the road have not been fair to the new owners, but that's a topic for another article.
   3. The insurance premiums are extremely high. While I may have a lower opinion of many insurance company practices, I still believe in a commonsense business model on behalf of the rate determination. I have no idea if it's used in reality, but for argument's sake, hear me out.
      1. Deferred maintenance, or rotten run-down buildings, pose a greater insurance risk to the company, so if you want them to insure your crummy unmaintained building, you will pay more. Well-maintained buildings have lower risk and usually have lower premiums.
      2. Insurers review insurance losses by state or geographical area. Florida has lots of hurricanes and storms, California has lots of wildfires and earthquakes, Louisiana has lots of flooding, and states in tornado alley have, well, tornadoes. If you live in those places, expect to pay more in insurance premiums.
      3. Are there unscrupulous insurance companies charging inflated rates gouging customers just because they live in condos? Likely, but I have belief in the competitive free market, so you may need to shop around a little more diligently.
   4. Interviewed realtors make the argument that rundown buildings with high maintenance costs and high dues just aren't selling well anymore, so property values are going down, and the listings aren't even being shown... "no duh!" (But please learn this now, rather than when it's too late!) Well-maintained buildings are worth more.