Frequently Asked Questions

"Skyrise" is another term for a high-rise residential condo building. Although it's often used as a synonym for "Highrise" we actually own the registered trademark for the term Skyrise as it relates to residential living. Most of the buildings we cover range from around 8 stories to, well, the sky's the limit! Most Skyrises have HOA's, elevators, security, parking and shared amenities like pools, lounges and fitness centers. More on that below.

There's no single legal definition, and it really depends on the city. A 10-story building in Charlotte might be considered a high-rise, whereas in Miami it's more of a mid-rise. But as a rule of thumb most 1–3 story buildings are low-rises or garden condos. Next are mid-rises which are typically 4–9 stories and then there are the high-rise condos that are 10+ stories.

If you want to be technical about it, then look to the fire codes in most U.S. cities which treat a building as a high-rise once the occupied floors sit about 75 feet above ground level, which is usually around the seventh or eighth floor.

Skyrises.com is a real-time high-rise condo search platform paired with expert local guidance. We publish city guides, building profiles, current listings and market insight for high-rise markets across the U.S., and we connect you directly with one hand-picked specialist in each city. Search the listings on your own for as long as you like, and then when you want to find out more about a specific condo or building reach out and you'll be connected directly to a local broker or agent who actually knows what they're talking about. We don't use call centers here and your info will only be passed on to that one local agent for follow-up.

We currently publish guides for Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Worth, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, and Portland. Charlotte, NC, is coming soon. Each city is led by its own local specialist. We add markets carefully rather than quickly, because a city only goes live once we've found the right expert to lead it. More cities are in progress.

Yes. Searching listings, browsing building profiles, saving favorites, setting up alerts, and reaching out to your city's expert are all free. There's no subscription and no charge for the introduction.

No. Skyrises.com is a publisher and a search platform. The actual real estate work like showings, offers, negotiation, closing, etc. is handled by the licensed specialist in your city, working under their own brokerage.

Skyrises.com is owned and operated by Niche Realty Sites LLC, based in Vancouver, Washington. We're no strangers to the high-rise condo space having previously launched and owned Highrises.com before its acquisition.

Our founder, Brian Enright, has relationships with high-rise experts across the country that he developed when he launched Highrises.com in 2006. He's tapped back into that network to find local experts who have helped buyers and sellers in buildings throughout their respective city. He interviews them, reviews their history of closings, and makes sure they're well suited to help anyone who visits Skyrises.com. A broker or team cannot buy their way onto Skyrises.com - they must have the experience and credentials to be invited to be our partner agent.

Buying a high-rise condo involves a lot more than a typical real estate transaction. You're not just buying space in the building. Rather you're buying into a building's finances, its rules, its reserve study, and its reputation. And every building is different with its own personality, finances, rules, etc. A high-rise expert can help you narrow down your search and find the right condo in the right building. You don't want to hire an agent to take you to a building where they've never even been before and don't know where to park. You want an agent who knows the building inside and out, and our partners demonstrate that knowledge.

An experienced high-rise specialist also knows which towers have special assessments coming, which ones cap rentals, which stacks get afternoon sun and which get freeway noise, which lenders will actually finance a given building, and what a unit is genuinely worth versus what the seller thinks it's worth. That's knowledge and experience that a run-of-the-mill general agent isn't going to know and they're not going to find it in their MLS dashboard.

Your inquiry goes to only one person: Our high-rise specialist in your city. They will respond to you directly. That's the whole process.

No. We don't route inquiries to offshore call centers, and we don't sell your information to a pool of agents who then compete for your attention. Your inquiry goes to your city's specialist and only to them. We're kind of old-fashioned that way, but it's because we respect you and your time. We don't like being bombarded with calls and emails either, which is why we like this model and we don't plan on changing it.

No. We don't charge you any fees, and unlike other portals we do not charge a referral fee to the agent if you should close on a transaction with them. Our partner agents pay a flat monthly fee to be on our site if they're invited to join.

If you go on to buy or sell, your agent is compensated through the commission structure spelled out in the representation agreement you sign with them just like any real estate transaction. Commissions are negotiable and always disclosed up front, and your agent will walk you through exactly how it works in your market before you commit to anything.

Absolutely. Search all you want, save what you like, read the building guides. If you're already under a representation agreement with another agent our partner agent will not be able to work with you, but you're free to use the site all you like.

We only work with one specialist per market, and we generally research and approach agents directly. That said, if your city is not on Skyrises yet and you are a high-rise condo specialist we'd like to know about you. Use the corporate contact form on our About page to reach out.

Pretty much every condo building, no matter the size, will have a monthly Home Owner Association (HOA) fee. That monthly fee helps cover the costs of maintaining the building and typically goes to staff payrolls, insurance, maintenance, landscaping, common areas, amenities, elevators, etc. The HOA will also put some of the fee into a reserve fund for future repairs. In many towers water, sewer and trash are included in the HOA dues and some towers will even include gas, internet and cable. Some older buildings will even include electricity.

High-rise HOA dues may look high if you're used to single-family homes. But consider what you'd pay in a year for your home's insurance, maintenance, repairs, roofing, landscaping, utilities, a gym, pool, security, etc. and you may find the number is not as imposing as it first looked.

The monthly fee will vary enormously between buildings based on the age of the building, the amenities, the utilities, the staff and more. A loft-style building with few amenities will have a much lower monthly fee than a Ritz-Carlton tower with a huge list of amenities and full staff. That's another reason why it's good to work with a high-rise expert who can point you towards the buildings that fit your needs best.

A special assessment is a one-time charge levied on owners when the HOA needs money the reserve fund can't cover. This could be anything from an unexpected elevator failure to hurricane damage. Most buildings will need a new roof at some point after about 20 years so that usually results in a special assessment. It's important to remember you're an owner of the building as well as your condo, so the fewer units there are in the building the more each owner will have to pay when something goes sideways.

You can't eliminate the risk entirely but you can look for clues. Before you buy, look at the building's reserve study, recent board minutes, and current reserve balance relative to upcoming capital needs. A tower with healthy reserves and a board that raises dues gradually is far less likely to hand you a big bill. Again, this is why it's important to work with a high-rise specialist who knows which documents you'll need to review and where to look for clues about possible assessments or reserve shortfalls.

Condo-Hotels are becoming increasingly popular with the rise of VRBO and AirBNB. You'll find them in popular tourist cities like Miami and Las Vegas. In a condo-hotel, you own your unit outright, and then the building rents it out through their in-house rental program. Most guests never even know they're staying in a condo that someone owns... they just think it's a hotel room. If you don't want to put it in the hotel pool most buildings will allow you to rent it out and manage it yourself. Then when you're in town you can stay in your unit, usually just paying a cleaning fee when you leave. This is a great option for investments and 1031 Exchange properties because you while your away your condo earns income.

Be aware that condo-hotels can be harder to finance than traditional condos. Some buildings are cash only, and others can be financed but usually at a slightly higher down payment and interest rate since it's considered an investment and therefore riskier for the lender.

Conventional loans are typically no harder to secure in a healthy, well-managed high-rise than in a house. But if the building's HOA has issues it may be harder because the lender is underwriting the building as well as the borrower. So if there is a pending lawsuit or if the HOA is not in good order that can adversely affect your ability to get a conventional loan. When lenders evaluate a building they look at owner-occupancy ratios, the percentage of units owned by any single entity, HOA reserve funding, pending litigation, and commercial space within the building.

A tower that fails those tests can be non-warrantable, which means conventional and FHA financing may be off the table and you're looking at portfolio lenders, larger down payments, and higher rates. Condo-hotel units are frequently cash-only for exactly this reason.

This is one of the biggest practical differences between buying a condo and buying a house. It's also yet another reason why it's important to work with an agent who already knows which buildings are easy to finance and which ones aren't. You don't want to fall in love with a condo only to find out you can't get financing. Better to avoid those from the start.

This depends entirely on the building and its CC&R's (Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions). Most towers will allow traditional annual leases, although they may be subject to a rental cap. A rental cap is the percentage of units the HOA will allow to be rented out at any given time, and once that number is met no additional owners will be allowed to rent out their unit. So if a building has 100 units and a 20% rental cap, only 20 units can be rented at any given time. If all 20 are rented and you want to rent yours out you'll have to be put on a waitlist until one of the other 20 owners stops renting their unit. This can be frustrating if you need to lease in short order. If that's a possibility for you then a good high-rise agent will steer you towards buildings that are more investor-friendly or that don't have rental caps at all.

Nightly and Short Term Rentals (STR's) are another animal entirely. The vast majority of condo buildings don't allow nightly or short-term rentals. Most owners have no desire to live around hotel guests in their building, and to have to share all the amenities they pay for with transient occupants. But there are buildings that will allow 30-day minimum rentals which can be a handy way to generate income if your condo will be a second home. These are typically business and executive renters who are in town to work for a month. Talk to your city's specialist about which buildings offer this if it sounds like a good option for you. And keep in mind that the penalties for renting your condo out nightly in a building that forbids it can be very severe. It's not worth the risk.

Good question! It's important to do your homework. A good agent will help, but here are some highlights to look out for:

• How much is in reserves, and when was the last reserve study?
• Any special assessments in the last five years, or planned in the next five?
• Any active or pending litigation?
• How many units are in the building?
• How experienced is the HOA board? Has there been a lot of recent turnover?
• What's the owner-occupancy percentage?
• Are there rental restrictions or caps? Are nightly rentals allowed?
• What do dues include, and how much have they risen over the past three years?
• What are the pet restrictions? Size, breed, number of pets?
• Is the building warrantable for conventional financing?

The listings you'll see on Skyrises.com come directly from the local MLS in each market via IDX feeds, and they refresh constantly throughout the day. Because feeds run on a slight delay, a unit that just went under contract may briefly still show as active but your specialist can confirm current status in real time.

This depends on the market. Portland, Atlanta, Las Vegas and Boston do not offer help with rentals or leasing. But in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston our specialists can help with leasing and you'll see available high-rises for lease on those market pages. We do not recommend using Craigslist for your rental search, and we would strongly advise you to never wire money to anyone for a property unless you've seen it in person and verified it's actually available and the person you're talking to is the owner's representative. The best way to do that is to work directly with a leasing agent.

The building directory is our index of high-rise towers across every market we cover. Each profile collects what's actually useful about a specific building like its history, amenities, HOA structure, floor plans, quirks, and current availability so you can shop by building rather than sifting listing by listing. We've found that in high-rise markets most buyers decide on a building before they pick out a unit.

No. You can search and browse freely. Creating a free account lets you save favorites, store searches, and get notified when new units hit the market in a building you're watching. So we think it's worth setting up an account because getting notified is really useful in towers where units don't come up very often and sell fast. We hope you agree!

Every city guide has a contact form and direct contact details for that market's specialist. Feel free to submit a contact form or call/text the agent directly. If you have questions about Skyrises the company please use the corporate contact form on our About page.