Florida's Condo Market Keeps Sliding as Single-Family Homes Hold Their Gains

Florida's housing market has split into two markets moving in opposite directions. Single-family home prices have continued to climb, with the statewide median rising roughly 5 percent year over year. Condominiums have gone the other way, with statewide inventory pushing past eight months of supply and South Florida condo prices falling outright. The divergence traces to a specific set of Florida rules that took full effect at the start of 2026 and to an insurance market that treats the two property types very differently.

The numbers behind the split

Statewide, the single-family median price rose to roughly $432,000 in mid-2026, an increase of about 4.9 percent from a year earlier. Single-family sales volume has run at its strongest pace since 2023, indicating that demand at those price points has held despite mortgage rates well above their pandemic-era lows.

The condo picture is different. The statewide median condo price crept up just 1.7 percent year over year, a figure that trails inflation and therefore represents a real decline in value. In South Florida, condo prices fell in absolute terms.

Inventory tells the clearer story. Statewide condo supply has reached roughly 8.1 months. Housing economists generally treat six months of supply as the rough dividing line between a seller's market and a buyer's market, which puts Florida condos firmly in buyer territory. Single-family inventory across most Florida markets remains well below that level.

Why condos are under pressure

The proximate cause is a set of requirements the Legislature enacted following the 2021 Surfside collapse, in which the partial failure of the Champlain Towers South condominium in Miami-Dade County killed 98 people. The response was structural and financial.

As of January 1, 2026, condominium buildings three stories or higher must complete milestone structural inspections and must fully fund their reserves. Reserve funding is the piece with the most immediate financial effect. Many Florida condo associations had historically waived or underfunded reserves, a practice that kept monthly assessments low while deferring the cost of roof replacement, structural repair, and major systems work.

Full funding removes that option. Associations that had been deferring must now collect what the reserve study says the building requires, and for older buildings with significant deferred maintenance, that arithmetic produces large numbers. Associations have responded with substantial increases in monthly assessments, with special assessments running into five and six figures per unit, or with both.

A buyer evaluating an older condo now has to price in not only the purchase and the monthly assessment but the possibility of a special assessment that has been identified but not yet levied. That uncertainty has priced some buyers out and pushed others toward newer construction or toward single-family homes.

The insurance layer

Property insurance affects condos differently than houses. A condo association carries a master policy covering the building structure and common elements, and unit owners carry individual policies covering interiors and contents. Master policy premiums are spread across all units through the association budget.

Coastal Florida condo towers are among the most expensive structures in the state to insure. They are large, they are close to the water, and their replacement cost is high. When master policy premiums rise, the increase lands in the association budget alongside the reserve funding requirement, and unit owners absorb both through assessments.

Single-family homeowners have seen premium pressure too, but the market for that segment has stabilized more than it has for large coastal structures. Citizens Property Insurance Corporation approved rate recommendations that produce an average statewide decrease for personal lines policyholders, the first average reduction in years, though the relief is uneven by county and several counties still face increases.

Where the pressure concentrates

The effects are not distributed evenly across the state or across price points. Older, lower-priced condo communities are taking the hardest hit. These are buildings from the 1960s through the 1980s, often occupied by retirees on fixed incomes, where the reserve requirement collides with owners who cannot absorb a special assessment.

Higher-priced condo segments have held up better. Buyers at the luxury end are less sensitive to an assessment increase, and newer luxury towers were built under more recent codes with reserves funded from the start. The result is a bifurcation within the condo market itself.

Geographically, the pressure is heaviest in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties, where the concentration of older coastal towers is greatest. Southwest Florida markets including Lee and Collier counties and Gulf coast communities in Pinellas and Sarasota counties face similar dynamics.

What it means for buyers and sellers

For buyers, the condo market offers the most negotiating leverage Florida has seen in years, but due diligence has become considerably more demanding. The documents that matter are the reserve study, the milestone inspection report, recent association financial statements, and minutes from board meetings where assessments were discussed.

Financing adds a constraint. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac maintain condo project eligibility standards, and buildings with significant deferred maintenance or inadequate reserves can be placed on lists that make conventional financing unavailable. A buyer can find an attractively priced unit in a building where financing simply cannot be obtained, which limits the buyer pool to cash purchasers.

For sellers in older buildings, the calculation is difficult. Waiting for the market to recover assumes recovery, and the underlying cost structure driving the decline is a legal requirement rather than a cyclical condition. Sellers who need to move have generally had to price to the assessment risk.

The broader economic picture

Mortgage rates remain the largest variable for the single-family market. Thirty-year rates have hovered in the high 6 percent range, and the Federal Reserve meets September 15 and 16 with its rate decision expected on the second day. The August consumer price index report released this week is the last major inflation reading before that meeting.

Florida's in-migration has moderated from its peak but has not reversed. The state continues to add residents, and household formation supports demand at the entry and mid-range of the single-family market. Construction has responded, particularly in Central Florida and along the Interstate 4 corridor.

Property taxes and insurance together now represent a larger share of the monthly cost of Florida homeownership than they did a decade ago. That shift means that a buyer's affordability calculation is less dominated by principal and interest than it used to be, and it makes the condo assessment problem more visible in comparison.

What Surfside changed

The partial collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside on June 24, 2021 killed 98 people and became the deadliest structural failure in Florida history. Engineering investigations pointed to long-identified deterioration in the pool deck and structural slab that had been documented years earlier without being repaired.

The association had been working toward a major repair project, and unit owners faced assessments running into six figures. That financial dynamic, in which owners resist assessments and boards defer work, was the pattern the Legislature set out to break.

The resulting statutory framework has two components. Milestone inspections require structural assessment by a licensed engineer or architect at defined building ages, with follow-up inspection if deterioration is found. Structural integrity reserve studies require associations to identify the remaining useful life and replacement cost of major components and to fund reserves accordingly.

The second component is what removed board discretion. Florida law previously allowed owners to vote to waive or reduce reserve funding, and many associations did so year after year. The waiver option is gone for the components the reserve study covers, which converts a deferred liability into a current obligation.

Practical advice for condo owners and buyers

Owners should obtain and read their association's structural integrity reserve study. It identifies which components are covered, what each is expected to cost, and how much the association must collect. That document is the single best predictor of future assessments.

The milestone inspection report is the companion document. A phase one inspection that finds substantial structural deterioration triggers a phase two inspection and a repair obligation, and buildings in that position face costs beyond ordinary reserve funding.

Buyers should request association financial statements for at least the past three years, the current budget, and minutes from board meetings over the past year. Minutes are where assessment discussions occur before they become formal, and they frequently reveal pending costs that have not yet appeared in a budget.

Florida law requires sellers and associations to provide certain documents to prospective purchasers, and a buyer under contract has a statutory right to cancel within a defined period after receiving them. Understanding that window matters, because it is the buyer's opportunity to exit after reviewing the financial picture.

What's next

Florida Realtors publishes monthly market data by county and by property type, and the September report is scheduled for release on October 16. That release will show whether the condo trend has stabilized or continued.

The Legislature has revisited condominium law in each of the past several sessions, and further adjustments to reserve requirements or milestone inspection timelines are plausible when lawmakers return in March. Any change would need to balance financial relief for owners against the building safety rationale that produced the rules.

For individual owners, the association's reserve study and milestone inspection are the documents that determine their exposure. Florida law entitles unit owners to access association records, and reviewing them is the most direct way to understand what a building is facing.

The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation oversees condominium associations and publishes guidance for unit owners on their rights to records, on election procedures, and on dispute resolution. Owners facing an assessment dispute generally start there.