The building matters more than the unit.

Buyers usually arrive comparing units. On the Miami coastline the more consequential comparison is between buildings, because a condominium purchase is a share of an association as much as it is a residence, and the association's finances follow you.

Florida's post-2021 legislation on structural inspections and reserve funding changed this materially. Buildings that had deferred reserves now have to fund them, and that arrives as higher monthly assessments or as a special assessment with a number attached. Two buildings on the same block can be in completely different positions on this, and it is knowable in advance from the reserve study, the inspection reports and the association's minutes.

Within a building, the variables that move price are line and exposure, floor, whether the view is protected by what is built around it, and what the association permits on leasing and on renovation. A unit that looks like a bargain against its neighbours usually is not one once those are accounted for. Occasionally it genuinely is, and that is the case worth finding.

Jonathan reads those documents with clients before an offer rather than during the inspection period, because by then the negotiating leverage has already been spent.