Yachts drift by on a
shimmering stretch of Biscayne Bay, hemmed in by the
mainland and Virginia Key. The sun breaks each dawn over the
water with the saturation of an oil painting.
That’s the view from Cynthia Muniz’s home on the eighth
floor of her Brickell Key condominium — an elongated,
300-unit complex whose jaundiced walls stretch eastward,
right up to the water’s edge.
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Aerial view of Brickell, Brickell Key and downtown Miami on Friday, July 18, 2025 |
More condo owners, especially those in
older, ill-maintained buildings in South Florida, are
finding themselves in similar predicaments. They’re caught
between the closing walls of increasingly unaffordable
ownership costs and a wary market, wherein to sell quickly
they’d need to do so at a steep loss. The conditions have
set the stage for a deepened affordability crisis that the
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta warns could undermine South
Florida’s economy.
Condominiums have long made up a major portion of local
affordable housing, said Florida International University
Metropolitan Center associate director and affordable
housing expert Ned Murray. But that reality was upended in
the early hours of June 24, 2021, when Surfside’s Champlain
Towers South building collapsed, killing 98 people. It
remains one of the deadliest structural engineering failures
in U.S. history.
And it changed everything related to building construction
and maintenance, said condo market analyst Peter Zalewski.
He described the Champlain Towers failure as “this
generation’s Hurricane Andrew,” invoking the infamously
deadly 1992 hurricane that led to a revamp of Florida
building codes.
Within a year of the building’s fall, the Florida
Legislature responded with a new law. It stipulated that all
30-year-old condo buildings — or 25-year-old structures, if
they’re within 5 miles of the coast — with three or more
stories complete safety inspections and structural integrity
reserve studies — estimates of how much they’d need to save
to pay for future critical repairs — by the end of 2024.
The legislation occasioned a sea change in how condo
associations financially and structurally maintain their
buildings. Owners had a little over two and a half years to
prepare to make up for years or decades of reserve savings
and critical structural repairs that many associations had
deferred.
They quickly felt the impact. Maintenance fees climbed
alongside insurance rates, which often accompanied five- or
six-figure special assessments. Those costs have financially
overwhelmed some owners, threatening the housing
affordability and long-term equity that made the present
feel stable and the future feel predictable.
The FIU Metropolitan Center estimates that median homeowners
association fees for condos in Miami-Dade have increased
more than 70% since 2016. Between the first halves of 2022
and 2025 alone, association fees for condos with at least
three stories increased by 42%, according to the Center.
Muniz can relate. She says her maintenance fees have risen
to $1,300 a month — more than double what she reports having
paid in the years preceding the Champlain collapse.
On top of that, she’s paying nearly $300 a month as part of
a 10-year payment plan on a $45,000 special assessment to
redo the building’s pool deck, garage and more.
Her total monthly building costs are now $1,600 and, she
fears, rising. And that’s in addition to her $1,300 monthly
mortgage.
“I’m on the borderline,” Muniz said of her ability to afford
to keep living in her condo. “It’s not quality of life for
me to put all my earnings into four walls of concrete.”
Muniz, a pharmaceutical sales representative, wouldn’t think
of retiring while still financially on the hook for her
condo. She said she can’t sell it soon enough.
“It’ll be a huge weight off my shoulders,” she predicted of
any future sale, her eyes tearing up at the thought. “I
won’t have that worry I take to sleep every night.”
When that will be is anyone’s guess.
Showings come and go. Offers, however, remain elusive, and
Muniz feels “discouraged” with each passing week her condo
languishes on the market.
Rising costs for South Florida condo owners
Muniz’s struggle is increasingly common but not universal.
“It’s a tale of two markets,” said market analyst Ana
Bozovic. “There’s a big performance divide between older
product and newer product.”
And most of the local “product” — meaning condo units — is
older. University of Florida’s Warrington College of
Business estimates that, as of 2023, three-quarters of South
Florida condos — in Miami-Dade, Broward or Palm Beach
counties — were built in or before 1993.
Not all old buildings are in terrible shape, stressed
Bozovic. But units in older buildings with recent or
impending inspections, onerous assessments and mounting
maintenance fees might be harder to sell, barring price
reductions. They’re also less attractive to many of the
high-earning out-of-staters, who tend to favor newer
buildings, Bozovic said.
As ownership costs have risen, so too has the number of
condos up for sale. In June, Miami-Dade’s condo inventory —
the number of condos for sale — increased 36%
year-over-year, according to a recent Miami Association of
Realtors report. That translates to roughly 14 months of
inventory — an estimate of how long it would take to sell
all available units at the current sales pace — making it a
buyer’s market. A balanced market has six to nine months of
inventory, noted the Association.
Some older units do sell quickly, said David Dajani, Muniz’s
real estate agent — but often after owners absorb price cuts
or pay off their special assessments. Even still, he added,
many buyers are wary of growing maintenance fees.
As a result, the market is generally slow right now, said
Zach Joslin, co-founder of the Brissi Group at BHHS EWM
Realty. “There’s still a lot of demand in Miami,” he added,
but he’s expecting a big adjustment in pricing for older
condos.
So is Zalewski, the condo market analyst. He predicts a 40%
reduction in condo prices relative to COVID-19-era highs. It
could happen at any time, he says. It just takes enough
sellers offloading their units at lower-than-market prices
for buyers and appraisers to adjust their expectations.
But the state’s first post-Surfside condo law is already
eroding some property values and will only continue to do
so, said Murray. “Human safety always has to be at the
forefront,” but the law required “much more deliberation
relative to its effect on the market, on those who own and
live here.”
Legislators seemed to recognize as much earlier this year,
when they passed another bill to ease affordability
concerns. Per the new law, condo associations can take out
lines of credit to fund reserves. And if they’re making
repairs deemed structurally necessary, they can pause
mandatory reserve contributions for two years. Another
recent law provides condo associations up to $175,000 to
reinforce their buildings and comply with new safety laws.
But, added Murray, “much of the damage had already been
done” by the first piece of legislation. “We’re seeing it
play out in the market” through the devaluation of condos
like Muniz’s, he said.
Or Luisa’s.
In 2022, Luisa, then 27, had saved up enough to make a down
payment on a condo in Morningside, valued at $353,000. A
first-generation American, Luisa was the first in her family
to own a home. She asked the Herald to use only her middle
name because she is still embarrassed about what ended up
being a costly financial decision.
“Everyone always tells you, the American dream is owning
your own home,” she remarked.
Luisa recalled feeling “very proud and emotional” to close
on her one-bedroom condo, a feat that made her feel she had
achieved “what my mom had sacrificed so much for.”
But within months of closing came the building’s 50-year
inspection. Luisa, a nonprofit director making just over
$100,000 a year, found herself stuck with an $8,000
assessment to be paid over the course of three months. A
year later, she was on the hook for a separate $25,000
assessment.
Meanwhile, her mortgage and maintenance fees swelled —
eventually to the point of unsustainability. When she moved
into her place, Luisa’s mortgage was $1,800 a month and
maintenance was $530. Within two years, she was paying the
bank $2,700 each month, plus nearly $1,000 to her condo
association — a nearly 60% increase in total housing
expenditures.
Property tax hikes explained some of those costs, but a good
deal of them came from increases in insurance premiums —
both her individual unit’s plan, as well as the building’s,
Luisa explained.
Zalewski, the market analyst, estimates that insurance costs
make up roughly 25% of condo association fees.
And premiums have gone up considerably since the Champlain
collapse. Compiling data from the Florida Office of
Insurance Regulation, the Metropolitan Center found that,
for condo associations in Miami-Dade, commercial multi-peril
premiums — insurance paid for by condo associations to cover
physical damage and liability — cost, on average, $175,000
at the start of 2021. By the end of 2024, that average had
jumped to $462,000 — a 164% increase.
Banks also typically require individual owners to take out
homeowners insurance policies in order to qualify for
mortgages. Those premium averages climbed from $1,600 to
nearly $2,300 over the same period, a 44% rise.
It all became too much for Luisa. She moved into an
apartment and tried to rent out the condo to cover the
mortgage but had to pay double rent for almost three
tenantless months.
As the costs piled up, she decided to sell, listing the unit
for just over $400,000. No bites. Only after she knocked
nearly $60,000 off the initial asking price was Luisa able
to sell — for $7,000 less than what she had paid two years
earlier.
“I cried at the real estate attorney’s office. I was so
sad,” she recalled of the day she turned in her keys. Luisa
estimates the whole ordeal left a $50,000 hole in her
savings.
“When I think of a future, unless it’s with someone, I don’t
think I’ll ever be able to own a home,” she speculated. “I’m
just not on track to be able to save enough” to both
purchase a home and put aside money for emergencies,
retirement and children, she said.
Financially stressed owners debate: stay or go?
While Muniz and Luisa took their chances on the open market,
Bill Sarille is holding out in hopes of an investor buyout
of his Miami Beach condo building.
A former personal trainer, Sarille, 68, explained that a
spinal condition forced him into retirement during the
COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’m probably gonna be in a wheelchair. I hate to say it,”
he lamented, eyeing a pristinely maintained road bike that
now sits unused in the corner of his living room.
Sarille lives on a fixed income — roughly $1,100 a month,
from Social Security and food stamps, plus a bit extra from
dividends on investments. His home of nearly 30 years — a
studio apartment on South Beach’s West Avenue — has drained
the money he had saved before retirement, roughly $50,000.
Replacing an air conditioner, paying for various minor
special assessments, and coping with rising maintenance and
insurance fees has bled his savings dry.
And his building is now expecting a multimillion-dollar
special assessment, for which Sarille says he’d potentially
have to contribute up to $80,000 over 10 years — money he
doesn’t have. He’s hoping to qualify for a Miami-Dade County
loan program, but access to those limited funds is far from
guaranteed.
The county estimates that by the end of July, it will have
given out more than 1,500 loans totaling more than $40
million. An additional 500 loans — worth roughly $15 million
— are in the pipeline. The county told the Herald it will
pause new applications beginning Aug. 5 while it works to
improve the system. Miami-Dade intends to relaunch it in
early 2026, though a specific date has yet to be announced.
Just up the road from Sarille, the owners at 1250 West Ave.
voted to sell their building to JDS Development Group, which
plans to demolish the complex and build a luxury condo in
its place. Sarille hopes to receive a similar deal.
And from whisperings around his building, Sarille figures a
developer buyout of the bayside building could pay far more
than the $250,000 he figures he could get for his unit on
the open market. That extra money would give his retirement
fund some much-needed padding.
“I want to be secure in this retirement,” Sarille said. “I
worked all my life for this.”
But while a buyout would be a boon for Sarille, its impact
on the affordable housing market and the local economy more
generally is less than rosy.
A Herald/Times investigation found that the ballooning
ownership costs and harried sales that have accompanied the
post-Surfside law helped developers buy out older buildings.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, whose jurisdiction
extends to Florida, noted this month that those investors
might tear down purchased buildings and construct in their
place “mixed-use [structures] or more expensive housing.”
That, said the Atlanta Fed, would further aggravate local
affordability concerns, potentially driving families to
leave, which would in turn affect “labor markets, business
growth, and the overall longer-term competitiveness of
[South Florida].”
The region — and the state — are already grappling with that
trend. More than 130,000 residents left Miami-Dade in the
three years after 2020, according to FIU’s Metropolitan
Center. Statewide, the Florida Chamber of Commerce noted in
its 2024 Migration Trends Report that more than a
half-million people left the Sunshine State in 2023, the
largest number ever for Florida, which that year had the
highest gross out-migration of any state except California.
As soon as she’s able to sell, Muniz, the Brickell Key condo
owner, intends to join their ranks.
“Texas,” she mused. A friend of hers recently ditched the
Sunshine State for the Lone Star State. Another 50,000
Floridians did the same in 2023, according to data from the
U.S. Census Bureau. “Daily living is inexpensive there,”
Muniz reflected. “And Florida is getting extremely
expensive.”