Thinking of buying a condo on Key Biscayne and maybe concerned about assessments?<\/p>\n
The odds are looking pretty good in the buyer’s favor, based on recent data confirmed by Li Bensimon<\/a>, a real estate agent at Bensimon Luxury<\/a>, affiliated with Compass Florida, LLC.<\/p>\n As of Sept. 25, in the MIAMI Multiple Listing Service (MLS), only 23 of the 101 active condo listings on Key Biscayne declare a special assessment, while 65 declare none, and 13 sellers or brokers left the field blank, she noted in her analysis.<\/p>\n That 26.1% of assessments for a low-lying, water-surrounding area is only slightly higher than the 23.6% for Miami as a whole on that particular day of her survey.<\/p>\n Breaking it down further: Condos built before 1998 on Key Biscayne showed a 28.2% having assessments (although just 20 of 71 answered the question), while those built in 1998 or later came in at 17.6% (just 3 of 17 checked the box, so a very small sample).<\/p>\n “Two caveats worth keeping with the number,” Bensimon noted. “The field records what the listing agent declared, so it is a floor rather than a census, and blanks are not counted as ‘no’.”<\/p>\n There is no public dataset of every Key Biscayne condo with an assessment, she added.<\/p>\n A special assessment is the bill a condo association sends when the reserves don’t cover the work.<\/p>\n “In Miami right now, it’s the question I get asked more than any other,” Bensimon notes on her website. “Not ‘What’s the view like?’ but ‘Is this building about to hand me a bill?’ “<\/p>\n In Bensimon’s latest report on Miami Condo Special Assessments<\/a>, released to Islander News last month, of the 10,157 active condo listings in Miami on Sept. 5, 1,890 declared a special assessment. Of the 7,974 listings that answered the yes-no question at all, that is 23.7% (23.6% on Sept. 25), or roughly 1 in 4.<\/p>\n Bensimon said those stats are not spread evenly.<\/p>\n In buildings finished before 1998, it’s 35.9% (1,470 of 4,090 that answered). In buildings finished in 1998 or later, it’s 10.8% (420 of 3,884). So, in essence, an older Miami condo is 3.3 times as likely to be carrying a declared special assessment as a newer one, she said.<\/p>\n The year 1998 is the year Miami-Dade’s own recertification rule uses.<\/p>\n In her report, Bensimon said , “A blank field (on the polling answers) is not the same as none.”<\/p>\n