Quote:
Originally Posted by VitaMan
When will be a good time to buy a FL condo ?
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Excellent Q VM,
Never brand new as the developer's objective is to take the money and run.
So perhaps second or third unit owner when the condo building itself is fairly new.
Most plumbing starts to need heavy work 12 to 15 years and that includes pools and if applicable central hot water boiler. As I mentioned above roofs are 20, maybe sooner if in hurricane ally. Building exterior should be in the annual maintenances dues, but... And window and parapet sealing should be on a five year cycle. One of the biggest problems with reserve studies is what they contain, and what they fail to contain. This also applies to the annual maint budget items. Anything resembling deferred maintenance results in a look elsewhere as the condo board is an uninformed bunch of (insert adjective here).
Reserve studies and the actual reserve should start at year one, but developers usually structure CCRs to start later so they don't have to chip in on unsold units. It's this CCRs requirement for reserves that the Florida state law went after (correctly) a few years ago.
Anyway, Ignoring that I would never buy a condo (thin walls and idiot neighbors), if one is aged late teens or more, pass, unless you're only looking for a few years before reselling.
ie. think empty nester that wants only a few years of fun before selling and settling in for a long haul retirement elsewhere, usually near their kids. Or a young professional that just started decent pay and knows he/she will be out in a few years regardless. In this case, look at the reserve study very very carefully. And that can easily still result in a look elsewhere.
As a closing comment, my personally favorite condo assoc clients are high dollar units occupied by high level professionals that accept appropriate budget recommendations from outfits that professionally run the condos, and they appreciate having maintenance done continuously as they understand that type of building requires that. And btw all condos require constant maintenance which gets back to the Assoc Boards doing, or more frequently not doing their jobs.
