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Brand new ones are periodically inspected by the local government throughout the inspection process, and then a final time before anyone is allowed to live there. Potential buyers can also commission their own independent inspection.

The bathtub curve does not apply to buildings. Aside from outliers like the Hard Rock Hotel in NOLA, new buildings very rarely fail catastrophically.

‘Greenfield’ buildings have dozens of inspections during construction. Buildings are designed to remain standing indefinitely with maintenance unlike a battery power tool or washing machine.

Older buildings will typically have more issues since the building codes have improved over time, a focus on inspecting older buildings would be the best strategy.

Depends how old... Highrises> 100 years old (like my condo building, which spent it's first 90-some years as an office building) were often way overbuilt.

Not a bad idea, but the purpose of the legislation is to prevent Surfside from happening again. Newer buildings were built with different regulations and brand new buildings likely have fees commiserate with their age, as they were more recently inspected.