Florida's Condo Market Sits on a Year of Supply as Single-Family Prices Hold Steady

Florida's housing market has split in two. Single-family home prices across the state have held roughly steady through the summer of 2026, while the condominium market has undergone a substantial correction, with values down sharply and inventory swelling to roughly a year of supply.

The divergence traces to a specific policy shift rather than to broad economic weakness. Structural inspection and reserve funding requirements enacted after the 2021 Surfside collapse came fully into force, and the resulting special assessments and higher monthly dues have reshaped what buyers are willing to pay for aging condominium units.

The result is a market where a buyer's experience depends almost entirely on which product type they are shopping for.

The single-family picture

Statewide single-family median prices have moved modestly. Reported figures for the middle of 2026 placed Florida's median home price in the high $390,000s to roughly $425,000 depending on the data source and whether the figure covers all property types or single-family only, with year-over-year growth in the low single digits.

Inventory for single-family homes has run at roughly 4.9 months of supply as of July 2026. The traditional rule of thumb treats six months as a balanced market, below that as favoring sellers and above as favoring buyers. Florida single-family inventory therefore sits modestly on the seller side of balanced, a meaningful shift from the extreme scarcity of 2021 and 2022 but not a buyer's market by the conventional measure.

Homes are taking longer to sell. Median days on market has run in the 70-day to 84-day range depending on the measure, well above the pandemic-era lows when well-priced listings cleared in under two weeks.

Sales volume has held up. Reported closings in June 2026 were up roughly 10 percent year over year, with active listings down from the prior year's peak. That combination, steadier volume against thinner inventory, has kept single-family pricing from breaking down even as affordability pressure persists.

The condominium correction

The condo market tells a different story. Statewide condominium values have fallen by roughly 10 percent year over year, and condo inventory has expanded to approximately 12.3 months of supply as of July 2026, more than double the single-family figure and firmly in buyer's market territory.

The mechanism is well understood in the industry. Florida law now requires condominium associations to complete milestone structural inspections on buildings of a certain age and height and to fund reserves for major structural components rather than waiving them, a practice that was widespread for decades.

For a well-capitalized newer building, the requirements are largely administrative. For an older coastal building that deferred maintenance and waived reserves for years, the requirements have translated into special assessments that can run into the tens of thousands of dollars per unit and into monthly dues increases that permanently change the cost of ownership.

Buyers have responded rationally. A unit's list price no longer represents the cost of acquiring it. The relevant number is the price plus the pending assessment plus the capitalized value of higher recurring dues, and units in buildings with unresolved structural findings have struggled to attract offers at any price.

The insurance and financing overlay

Two other forces sit on top of the structural requirements.

Property insurance costs have moderated after a package of litigation and regulatory reforms, and Citizens Property Insurance has shrunk substantially as private carriers reentered the market. Rate relief has reached many policyholders. But Florida premiums remain among the highest in the country in absolute terms, and master policy costs for condominium associations flow through to owners as part of monthly dues.

Financing is the other constraint. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate sat at roughly 6.77 percent in mid-August 2026, with the 15-year around 5.95 percent. The Federal Reserve left its benchmark rate unchanged at its July 2026 meeting, and housing economists have largely abandoned near-term forecasts of mortgage rates falling below 6 percent.

Condominium financing carries additional hurdles. Secondary market guidelines restrict lending in buildings with significant deferred maintenance, insufficient reserves or high investor concentration, which can leave a unit effectively cash-only and shrink the buyer pool further.

Where the pressure is concentrated

The condo correction has not been uniform. It has fallen hardest on older mid-rise and high-rise buildings along the coast, particularly in South Florida and along the Gulf, where salt exposure accelerates structural deterioration and where much of the inventory dates to the 1970s and 1980s.

Newer construction, buildings with fully funded reserves and completed inspections, and townhome-style condominium products with simpler structural profiles have held value considerably better.

The geographic spread also reflects insurance and flood exposure. Coastal counties carry higher wind premiums and, in many cases, flood insurance requirements that add to carrying costs independent of the structural rules.

What it means for Floridians

For a condominium owner, the practical question is the financial condition of the association. Florida law requires sellers to provide prospective buyers with association financial documents, and the milestone inspection report and structural integrity reserve study are the two documents that most directly determine a unit's market value.

For buyers, the current market offers genuine opportunity in the condo segment for anyone with the capacity to absorb assessment risk and the diligence to read association records carefully. A discounted unit in a building that has completed its inspection and funded its reserves is a different asset than a discounted unit in a building that has done neither.

For long-time owners on fixed incomes, particularly retirees who bought decades ago, the assessments represent real hardship. That population has been the most visible casualty of the reform, and legislative proposals to phase requirements or provide relief have surfaced in recent sessions without resolving the underlying funding math.

For single-family owners and buyers, the market is closer to normal than it has been in several years: adequate but not abundant inventory, slower sales, negotiating room and pricing that is neither collapsing nor accelerating.

What the inspection law actually requires

Understanding the condo market requires understanding the specific obligations the Legislature imposed after the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside in June 2021, which killed 98 people.

The milestone inspection requirement applies to buildings three stories or higher, triggered at a defined building age with a shorter interval for structures within a specified distance of the coastline. A licensed engineer or architect performs a visual assessment of the structural components. If that phase identifies substantial structural deterioration, a more invasive second phase follows.

The structural integrity reserve study is the financial companion. Associations must have a study performed that identifies the remaining useful life and replacement cost of specified structural components, including the roof, load-bearing walls, floor, foundation, fireproofing, plumbing, electrical systems, waterproofing and exterior painting.

The consequential change is that associations can no longer waive or underfund reserves for those specified components. For decades, Florida condominium associations routinely voted to waive reserves in order to keep monthly dues low, which deferred maintenance costs indefinitely and left buildings without the funds to address deterioration when it was identified.

The reform ended that practice for structural components. Buildings that waived reserves for 30 years are now required to fund them, and the catch-up is what produces the special assessments reshaping the market.

Who is affected and how

The burden falls unevenly, and the pattern matters for anyone evaluating the market.

A newer building constructed under the post-Andrew code, with reserves funded from the start, faces an administrative requirement and little else. Owners in those buildings have seen modest dues adjustments and stable values.

An older coastal building that waived reserves for decades faces the full catch-up at once. Owners in those buildings have received assessments that in some cases exceed what they originally paid for their units, and monthly dues have risen to levels that change the fundamental economics of ownership.

Fixed-income retirees have been the most visible group affected. Florida's condominium stock includes a large inventory of modest units purchased decades ago by owners who budgeted for a specific carrying cost, and an assessment measured in tens of thousands of dollars is not absorbable from a Social Security income.

Investors have moved into that gap in some markets, purchasing distressed units at discounts and absorbing the assessment as part of the acquisition cost. That dynamic shifts ownership composition in affected buildings, which can create its own financing complications when investor concentration exceeds secondary market lending thresholds.

How buyers should evaluate a unit

The diligence checklist for a Florida condominium purchase in the current market is considerably longer than it was five years ago.

• Request the milestone inspection report and confirm whether phase two was required and, if so, what it found.
• Request the structural integrity reserve study and compare the identified funding requirement against the association's current reserve balance.
• Review board meeting minutes for the past two years, where assessment discussions appear before they become formal.
• Review the association's budget, delinquency rate and any pending litigation.
• Confirm the master insurance policy, its deductible structure and whether the association carries adequate coverage.
• Ask specifically whether any assessment has been approved, is under discussion or is anticipated.

Florida law entitles a prospective purchaser to association documents, and a buyer's inspection period should be structured to allow time for that review rather than treating it as a formality.

The single most useful signal is whether the association has completed both the inspection and the reserve study and has adopted a funding plan. A building that has done that work has a known cost. A building that has not has an unknown one, and the market is pricing that uncertainty aggressively.

What's next

Florida Realtors publishes monthly market statistics that provide the most granular county-level view of median prices, inventory and days on market, with data released on a lag of several weeks.

The November general election will put a proposed constitutional amendment before voters that would expand the homestead exemption to $250,000 by 2028, a change that would reduce carrying costs for owner-occupied primary residences, including homesteaded condominium units, while cutting local government revenue substantially.

Associations continue working through the milestone inspection and reserve study cycle, and the pace at which older buildings complete that process will determine how quickly the condo inventory overhang clears.