PALM BEACH COUNTY — It's a new year and that means new laws are now in effect.

A bill designed to protect condo owners and associations while easing their financial burden, now goes even further. Florida lawmakers are requiring associations to be more transparent.

Realtors say the newest rules make buying condos safer and more reliable.

Echo Fine Properties owner Jeff Lichtenstein has been a realtor for the last 25 years. He said right now, South Florida's housing market is booming thanks in part to stronger protections put in place after 2021's catastrophic collapse of a 12-story condo in Surfside that killed 98 people. "The real estate industry right now is really strong," Lichtenstein said. "It's now a buy, buy, buy, because we've went through all the pain over the last four years, and now we have so much more transparency, and it's a much more safer buy, because you know what the reserves are. You know what you're buying at this point." Florida lawmakers added key transparency provisions to the condo bill, which took effect January 1 requiring associations to make certain documents public.

"Condos have to have websites that are up, and if it's 25 units or more, so you could see what the what the reserve amounts are, what the financial records are, minutes of the meetings and ability to see everything that's going out there," said Lichtenstein.

Lichtenstein said the change in condo laws prevents past issues with inspections and insufficient reserves which led to plummeting sales.

"The condo owners didn't know exactly what's going on in the building itself, and then the buyers of it didn't have transparency," he said. "They would do an inspection of a unit themselves, but didn't know what's going on with the overall condominium itself."

The new provisions give buyers a clear picture of a building before they close the deal, helping them feel safer while keeping the price tag fair.

"Condos now are a much more sure type of a thing, because the consumer now knows what they're buying," Lichtenstein said. "They know what reserves are in place, and there's transparency of what inspections reveal, and you're not going to be surprised with special assessments going forward."