TALLAHASSEE The state Legislature continues to defy Ron DeSantis’ call to amend a new condominium-safety law that is putting financial pressure on condo owners and homeowners associations.
During an unprecedented speech Monday, House Speaker Daniel Perez, a Miami Republican, said legislation like the condominium law in question — passed in response to the deadly 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside — was too complicated to take up during a SPECIAL SESSION, even though that is how the original law was passed in 2022. The law, which took effect at the end of last year, requires condominium associations to fully fund their building maintenance reserves — a rule that some condo owners and associations have blamed for escalating maintenance fees and hefty special assessments. It is a departure from the previous law that allowed associations to vote to waive funding reserves, causing repairs in some older buildings to build up over decades, ballooning costs that may now be unaffordable. Legislators plan to review the condo safety law in the upcoming 2025 legislative session which begins March 4th.
Source Miami Herald
Fed Declines
To Cut
Interest Rates Further
At the Federal Reserve’s first 2025 press conference January 29, following a two-day meeting, Fed Chair Jerome Powell announced that there would not be an immediate rate cut and gave little insight into when further reductions in borrowing costs may take place. The Fed reiterated that the “timing and extent” of further interest rate cuts would depend on the “incoming data, the evolving outlook and the balance of risks.”
The 30-year fixed-rate has hovered between 6% and 7% for most of the last two and a half years. That trend continued this week, with the average rate remaining essentially flat at 6.95%. Driven by these higher rates and a persistent supply shortage, affordability hurdles still exist for many homebuyers and a significant number of them remain on the sidelines..
