remember after the 2004 Hurricanes Jeanne and Francis how the Florida real estate fell apart. A friend then said we could buy low, but we wouldn’t live long enough to see our investment flourish. Of course, she was wrong, and the Florida real estate market not only rebounded but created nest eggs for a lot of middle class folks.
Then the Champlain Towers South condominium collapsed in Surfside, FL, in 2021, killing 98 people and becoming one of the deadliest structural failures in US history. Florida significantly revised its building safety regulations a year later through the enactment of Senate Bill 4-D. The legislation established rigorous requirements for mandatory structural “Milestone Inspections” for aging coastal condominiums that are 25 years or older and three stories or more in height. CONTINUE READING