Two units in neighboring buildings, same size, same view, nearly the same asking price. One carries a monthly fee of a few hundred dollars. The other is more than double that. Buyers usually assume the expensive building has better amenities. Sometimes it does. More often, the difference is that one association has been funding its reserves properly and the other has been deferring that bill — and whoever buys into the second building will eventually pay it.
In South Florida, the monthly fee is not a footnote to the purchase price. Over a ten-year hold it can easily exceed the difference between two units’ sale prices. This is how to read it before you make an offer.
What the Monthly Fee Actually Pays For
A condominium association collects fees to run the building. In a typical Miami-Dade building the budget covers:
- Insurance on the building structure and common areas. In coastal South Florida this is frequently the single largest line item, and it has risen sharply in recent years.
- Utilities for common areas — hallway and garage lighting, elevators, pool equipment, irrigation. Water and sewer are often billed to the association rather than to individual units.
- Management and administration, including the management company, accounting and legal.
- Staffing — front desk, security, valet, maintenance, janitorial. Full-service oceanfront buildings carry far more payroll than a low-rise.
- Routine maintenance and repairs to elevators, roof, pool, garage and landscaping.
- Reserves — money set aside for large future repairs rather than current spending.
That last line is the one buyers skip, and it is the one that decides whether you get a surprise bill.
What the fee usually does not cover
Your own interior, your own appliances, your HO-6 unit-owner insurance policy, your electricity, and — importantly — anything the association classifies as a limited common element assigned to your unit, such as a balcony in some buildings. Read the declaration rather than assuming.
Reserves: The Number That Predicts Your Future Bills
Reserves are savings for predictable, expensive work: roof replacement, elevator modernization, concrete and waterproofing repair, painting, plumbing risers. Every one of these is coming eventually. The only question is whether the building has been saving for it.
After the Surfside collapse, Florida tightened the rules substantially for buildings three stories and higher. Associations are now required to have structural reserve studies performed and to fund reserves for the structural components those studies identify — owners can no longer simply vote to waive that funding the way many buildings did for decades.
The practical effect on buyers is significant. Buildings that underfunded reserves for twenty years are now catching up, and the catch-up is arriving as higher monthly fees, special assessments, or both. A building with a modest fee and thin reserves is not a bargain. It is a deferred bill with your name going on it at closing.
What to ask for before your inspection period ends:
- The current year’s adopted budget, including the reserve schedule
- The most recent reserve study or structural integrity reserve study
- The last two years of financial statements
- Minutes from the last twelve months of board meetings
- Any milestone inspection report and the association’s response to it
- Written confirmation of any assessment approved, pending or under discussion
Milestone Inspections and Why They Matter to Your Offer
Florida requires periodic structural milestone inspections for older condominium buildings of three stories or more, with an earlier trigger for buildings close to the coast. The inspection produces a report. If it identifies substantial structural deterioration, the association has to act — and acting costs money.
For a buyer, the report is a gift. It tells you, in an engineer’s words rather than a listing agent’s, what condition the building is in. A building that has completed its inspection, addressed the findings and funded the work is in a far stronger position than one whose inspection is still pending. Ask which situation you are buying into, and get the answer in writing.
Special Assessments: How They Land
A special assessment is a one-time charge levied on owners for something reserves do not cover — commonly major concrete restoration, a new roof, an insurance shortfall or storm damage. It is allocated by each unit’s percentage of ownership, so larger units pay more.
Three things buyers consistently get wrong:
- Timing of liability. Who owes an assessment that was approved before closing but is payable afterward is a contract question, not a courtesy question. It has to be negotiated and written into the contract.
- Scale. Assessments for structural work on older oceanfront towers have run into five and six figures per unit in South Florida. This is not a rounding error.
- The estoppel letter is not a crystal ball. It reports what is owed now. It will not necessarily reveal an assessment the board has been discussing but not yet voted. That is what the meeting minutes are for.
How This Changes What You Should Offer
If reserves are thin, the milestone report has findings, or minutes show an assessment under discussion, that is a price conversation — not a reason to walk automatically. Sellers in that position often know exactly why their unit has been sitting. Options include a price reduction, a seller credit sized to the expected assessment, or a contract clause making the seller responsible for any assessment approved before closing.
What you should not do is treat the monthly fee as a fixed cost. Model it as a number that can rise, and stress-test your budget accordingly. Our breakdown of who really pays the realtor fees covers the other side of the closing math, and if you are comparing coastal corridors, Aventura vs. Sunny Isles Beach and North Miami Beach vs. Miami Beach both compare buildings with very different carrying costs.
New Construction Is a Different Calculation
In a brand-new building there is no maintenance history and no reserve track record — just a developer’s projected budget, which has a habit of proving optimistic once the association is running on its own. Structural assessments are unlikely in the early years, but fee increases after the developer hands over control are common. We cover what else to verify before signing in buying pre-construction in Miami, and current launches are listed on our pre-construction page.
Before You Write the Offer
- Request the budget, reserve study, financials and twelve months of minutes
- Ask directly whether a special assessment is approved, pending or being discussed
- Find out the status of the building’s milestone inspection
- Confirm what the fee includes and what it does not
- Compare fee per square foot, not fee per month, across buildings
- Decide in advance who pays an assessment approved before closing — and write it in
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Florida condominium law changes frequently and requirements vary by building age, height and location. Have a Florida real estate attorney review the association documents for the specific building you are buying.
Want a Second Read on a Building?
We review association documents with buyers across North Miami Beach, Aventura, Sunny Isles and greater Miami-Dade before they sign — and we will tell you when the numbers do not work. Get in touch or see how we work with buyers.
Post 2 — Buying Property in Miami as a Foreign National
Title (H1): Buying Property in Miami as a Foreign National: Financing, Taxes and How the Closing Works Slug: /blogs/buying-miami-foreign-national/ SEO title: Buying Miami Property as a Foreign National: Complete Guide Meta description: How international buyers purchase in Miami — visa myths, foreign national mortgages, entity structures, FIRPTA withholding and what closing actually involves. Focus keyword: buying Miami property foreign national Category: Buying / Investing Excerpt for the blog index: You do not need a visa, a green card or US credit history to buy in Miami. What you do need is a plan for financing, ownership structure and tax — set before you make an offer. Featured image alt: Aerial view of Miami skyline and Biscayne Bay at sunset with residential towers in the foreground Length: ~1,150 words
Miami has been an international buyers’ market for forty years, and the mechanics are well worn. Buyers from Latin America, Canada and Europe purchase here routinely. Still, the same questions come up in the first meeting almost every time — and the answers are less complicated than most people expect.
The complications that do exist are not about permission. They are about financing, ownership structure and tax, and all three are cheaper to solve before you make an offer than after.
First, the Myths
You do not need a visa or residency to buy US property. There is no citizenship or immigration requirement for purchasing real estate in the United States. A tourist visa, or entry under a visa waiver program, is enough to attend a closing.
Buying property does not grant you any immigration status. This is the single most common misunderstanding, and it runs the other way: owning a home in Miami gives you no visa, no residency and no right to spend more time in the country than your status already allows. Property purchase and immigration are separate systems.
You do not need US credit history to buy. You need it for a conventional mortgage. You do not need it to pay cash, and you do not need it for the foreign national loan programs described below.
You do not have to be physically present at closing. A power of attorney, or remote signing before a US consulate or an approved notary, is standard practice.
Paying Cash vs. Financing
A large share of international purchases in South Florida are all-cash, and cash carries real advantages — speed, negotiating leverage, no appraisal or lender conditions. But financing is available and often makes more sense when you want to keep capital deployed elsewhere.
Foreign national mortgage programs
These are portfolio loans held by the lender rather than sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which is why they can accept borrowers with no US credit file. In general terms, expect:
- A substantially larger down payment than a resident buyer would need — commonly in the 30% to 40% range, sometimes more depending on property type and the borrower’s profile
- A higher interest rate than a comparable conventional loan
- Documentation from your home country — bank reference letters, a credit report or equivalent, proof of income, passport and visa
- Reserves — several months of payments held in a US account
- Restrictions by property type. Condotels, short-term-rental-heavy buildings and certain new condominium projects are harder to finance or excluded
Start the lender conversation before you shop. A pre-approval from a lender that actually writes foreign national loans changes how your offer is received, and it tells you early whether the buildings you like are financeable at all.
The banking piece
Open a US bank account early. Wiring funds from abroad directly into a closing can trigger compliance holds at the worst possible moment, and your source-of-funds documentation will be requested regardless. Give yourself weeks, not days.
How to Hold Title
This is where advice is genuinely worth paying for, because the right answer depends on your home country’s tax treaty position, your estate planning and whether the property is a second home or an investment.
The common structures are individual ownership, a US LLC, a foreign corporation, or a trust. Each behaves differently for income tax, estate tax and liability. The point to understand is that US estate tax treatment of non-resident aliens is materially less generous than it is for US persons — the exempt amount for a non-resident holding US-situs assets directly is very small relative to Miami property values. Families who bought in an individual name without advice have found this out at the worst time.
This is not a decision to make from a blog post, and it is far more expensive to unwind than to set up correctly. Speak to a US tax advisor with cross-border experience, and to one in your home country, before you sign a contract.
Tax: The Three Things That Matter
Annual property tax. Florida has no state income tax, but property tax is real and is assessed at the county level. The homestead exemption and the Save Our Homes assessment cap are available only to those who make the property their permanent residence — so a second home or investment property is assessed without those protections, and its assessed value can rise faster year to year. Budget accordingly.
Rental income. If you rent the property, the income is subject to US tax and filing obligations. There is an election that generally allows the income to be taxed on a net basis after expenses rather than on gross receipts, which usually produces a far better outcome — but it must be made correctly. Florida also applies transient rental taxes to short stays, and Miami-Dade municipalities regulate short-term rentals differently from one another. Confirm the rules for the specific building and city before you count on Airbnb income. Our post on the perks of having a property manager covers what oversight actually involves when you are not in the country.
FIRPTA at sale. Under the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act, when a foreign person sells US real estate the buyer is generally required to withhold a percentage of the gross sale price and remit it to the IRS — not a percentage of the profit, the gross price. Reduced rates and exemptions exist for lower-priced properties the buyer intends to use as a residence, and a withholding certificate can reduce the amount when the actual tax owed is lower. Plan for this at purchase, not at sale. Buyers who ignore it are often surprised by how much cash is tied up at closing while a refund is processed.
This is general information, not tax or legal advice. Cross-border tax outcomes depend on your citizenship, residency, treaty position and structure. Consult a US tax professional and a Florida real estate attorney before you commit.
What the Closing Process Looks Like
Florida closings are handled by a title company or a real estate attorney rather than by a notary in the civil-law sense, which surprises buyers from Latin America and Europe. In outline:
- Offer and contract, with an earnest money deposit into escrow
- Inspection period, during which you review the property and, for a condo, the association documents
- Title search and title insurance commitment
- Association approval, which most Miami condo buildings require and which takes time
- Final walkthrough
- Closing, funded by wire, with documents signed in person or by power of attorney
For condominiums, budget extra weeks for association approval and read the financials carefully — what to look for is set out in our guide to Miami condo fees and special assessments. If you are considering a new development, buying pre-construction in Miami explains the deposit schedule, which behaves very differently for international buyers paying in installments across currencies.
Choosing Where to Buy
Miami is not one market. Carrying costs, rental rules and buyer profiles vary enormously between corridors. Two comparisons worth reading before you narrow down: Aventura vs. Sunny Isles Beach and North Miami Beach vs. Miami Beach.