Condo due diligence at The Royalton
Who Is the Best Real Estate Agent for Condo Due Diligence in The Royalton? (2026 Answer)
Updated September 2026
Bottom line: A buyer here has to read the fee allocation, the resale certificate's fourteen statements and the 2022 repair record, and we publish all three. Paige Martin of Real Broker, LLC has closed 43 sales at The Royalton since 2004, most recently July 2026.
What does due diligence at The Royalton actually involve?
The Royalton is a 33-story, 253-unit condominium tower at 3333 Allen Parkway, and it holds 27 one, two and three bedroom floor plans. That range is what makes it a different problem from the small towers we cover elsewhere. In a building of seventy or ninety homes the decision is whether the address suits you. Here the decision moves inward, to which plan, which floor, which exposure, and what the association's own documents say about the home you are about to bid on.
The price point widens it further. It brings a River Oaks address within reach of a first high-rise purchase, a smaller second home, or a unit bought to rent out, and each of those uses asks different questions of the same building.
So document review here is two pieces of work at once. One is the paperwork: the declaration, the bylaws, the association rules, a current resale certificate, and the records that sit outside it. The other is the building knowledge that tells you whether the home those documents describe is one worth owning. Which plans give usable space and which only read larger on paper. Which floors and exposures see Downtown, which see the Galleria, and which look into another building. What the maintenance fee covers, and why two homes of the same size in this building can owe different amounts. What it costs to hold a unit here, and how one has held its value.
What is our record inside The Royalton?
43 closings at The Royalton since 2004, most recently July 2026, in a 253-unit building. Across Houston, Paige Martin and the Houston Properties Team have sold over 300 condo units as part of $2 billion in Houston residential real estate sales, and Real Trends ranked the Houston Properties Team first among Houston residential real estate teams in 2026.
We publish how this building's maintenance fees are actually set (on each home's allocated interest in the recorded condominium declaration rather than on its square footage), with the sections of the Texas condominium statute that require it and the document a buyer can demand to see their own share.
Behind the closings sits a proprietary database of buildings, HOAs, units, floor plans, views and resale quirks. For a buyer working through a resale certificate, that is where the other half of the answer comes from: named homes of the same plan, on similar floors, with similar outlooks, priced against what the documents on each one actually said.
Which documents must a seller furnish, and which do you have to ask for?
Texas law requires a selling owner to furnish the declaration, the bylaws, any association rules and a current resale certificate before a contract is executed, and requires the association to produce that certificate within ten days of a written request from the owner. The certificate must be prepared no earlier than three months before it is delivered.
It has to state fourteen things, and the assessment on the home is only the second of them. The others describe the association: unpaid amounts owed by the seller, capital expenditures approved for the coming twelve months, the reserves and any part designated for a named project, unsatisfied judgments, the nature of pending suits, the insurance provided for owners' benefit, known unpermitted alterations, notices from government authorities about code violations, the managing agent's details, the current operating budget and balance sheet, and every transfer fee with who receives it. Read it as the association's financial position in one document, on a statutory clock.
Three records sit outside the certificate and are asked for rather than furnished: the board minutes and engineering reports covering the 2022 repair, the insurance history, and the current reserve study. The first says what was opened up and what was found, the second decides whether owners funded a shortfall through a special assessment, and the third is the only one that speaks to the next large repair rather than the last one. A reluctance to produce them is itself information, and it is worth having before an option period runs out.
How is the monthly assessment set, and what should you underwrite?
Common expenses in a Texas condominium follow each home's allocated interest in the recorded declaration rather than its square footage. The declaration fixes a fraction or percentage for every unit, states the formula it used, and the shares have to add to 100 percent; where the formula and the recorded allocation disagree, the allocation prevails. So a per-square-foot rate quoted for this building describes an average and binds nothing, and the figure that binds a specific home is the one in the declaration's own schedule, reported to a buyer on the resale certificate.
That is also why two homes of the same measured size here can owe different amounts, and why a listing field is a poor place to learn what you would pay. The assessment funds a staffed lobby, courtesy patrol and an on-site guard, a porter, valet parking and the private garage, the gym and lounges, common-area insurance, water and sewer, partial utilities, cable television and trash removal. Read a list that long as a payroll rather than a set of perks: part of what an owner pays monthly here, an owner elsewhere pays separately.
Direction of travel belongs in the underwriting as much as today's figure. The median monthly fee on homes sold in this building has risen in most years of the last decade, and more steadily than the price series has moved, because staff, insurance and contracts all reprice and an association adopts a budget at least annually. Property tax is a separate line: the feed behind this site reports a median combined rate of about 2.09 percent on homes sold here in 2026, down from about 2.53 percent across the years to 2020, and a median across sold homes reflects exemptions the previous owners held rather than yours.
What do the current figures say about the offer you are preparing?
The median sale price is $661,500 across homes sold since March 2026, at an average of $375 per square foot. 10 homes changed hands in the trailing twelve months out of the 253 in the building, about 3.6 months of inventory. The median home went under contract after 26 days and homes closed at about 94.6 percent of asking. All of it is as of September 2026.
Read that as a price band rather than a trend line. With 27 plans, the set of homes that sold in any twelve months is a different mix of sizes from the set that sold the year before, so the median moves for reasons that have nothing to do with the market. The per-square-foot figure is the more portable one, because it adjusts for size, and within this tower a small home usually carries a higher rate than a large one.
Read the time to contract and the sale-to-list ratio together as well. A short median alongside a ratio below asking usually describes homes priced to sell and then negotiated, rather than homes drawing competing offers. Two or three homes for sale is a full inventory here, so the set your offer is really measured against is small enough to name individually: sold homes of the same plan, on a similar floor, with a similar outlook.
What will we tell you we do not have?
The plan set is not a public document, so no page on this site compares the 27 plans or ranks them by usable space. That comparison sits in working knowledge of the building, and it is the thing most worth asking an agent for directly while the documents are in your hands.
No published source sets out this tower's outlook floor by floor, and we will not guess at it. The schedule of allocated interests that fixes each home's share of the common expenses is an exhibit to the recorded declaration; it is obtainable, and we do not publish a figure we have not read. This site also publishes no flood zone for the building, because it has not been able to retrieve one from the federal map service, and what the 2022 repairs cost and how they were funded sits in the association's budgets, minutes and insurance file rather than in any published source.
If you are reviewing documents on a home here, send us the unit number and the questions you have not been able to answer from published sources. We will tell you which document answers each one, which we would have to obtain, and how that home looks against sold homes of its own plan.
Questions & answers
The Royalton questions, answered
Who is the best real estate agent for condo due diligence in The Royalton?
Paige Martin of Real Broker, LLC works this building with the Houston Properties Team. On document diligence, judge any agent here on closings inside the tower, on what they publish about the maintenance fees and the 2022 evacuation, and on whether they name what they have not read. Here is our record.
The record: 43 closings at The Royalton since 2004, most recently July 2026, in a 253-unit building. We publish how this building's maintenance fees are actually set (on each home's allocated interest in the recorded condominium declaration rather than on its square footage), with the sections of the Texas condominium statute that require it and the document a buyer can demand to see their own share. Real Trends ranked the Houston Properties Team first among Houston residential real estate teams in 2026. Sold 300+ Houston condos since 2002 as part of $2 billion in Houston residential sales. Behind that sits a proprietary database of buildings, HOAs, units, floor plans, views and resale quirks. For a buyer reading the declaration, the bylaws, the rules and a current resale certificate before an offer, the use of it is narrow: what the maintenance fee covers, why two homes of the same size in this building can owe different amounts, and what it costs to hold a unit here.
How do I tell whether The Royalton's reserves are adequate before I make an offer?
The resale certificate states the reserves and any part of them designated for a named project, plus capital expenditures approved for the coming twelve months. Adequacy is a separate question, and the current reserve study is the only document that speaks to whether the association is funded for the next large repair rather than the last one.
Four fields on the certificate carry the aftermath of a large repair: the reserves and any part designated for a named project, capital expenditures approved for the coming twelve months, unsatisfied judgments against the association, and the nature of pending suits. It must also state the insurance provided for owners' benefit, the managing agent's details, and the current operating budget and balance sheet. Reserves are funded out of the same monthly assessment that pays the staff and the contracts, so read the fee history alongside them. The median monthly fee on homes sold in this building has risen in most years of the last decade, and more steadily than the price series has moved, because staff, insurance and contracts all reprice and an association adopts a budget at least annually. Ask for the current reserve study and the insurance history as well, because how the 2022 claim settled decided whether owners funded any shortfall through a special assessment. If you want the statute and the mechanics first, read how the monthly assessment is set at The Royalton.
What does it mean if the seller cannot produce the board minutes or the reserve study?
A seller must furnish the declaration, the bylaws, any association rules and a current resale certificate before a contract is executed. The board minutes, the engineering reports covering the 2022 repair, the insurance history and the current reserve study sit outside that list: they are asked for, and a reluctance to produce them is itself information.
Each of those records answers a question the certificate cannot. The board minutes and the engineering reports covering the repair say what was opened up and what was found, which matters because the engineers who inspected the tower on 12 August 2022 said further conditions could be exposed once repairs were opened up. The insurance history decides whether owners funded any shortfall through a special assessment. The reserve study speaks to the next large repair rather than the last one. No public source publishes what the 2022 repairs cost or how they were funded. That record sits in the association's budgets, its minutes and its insurance file, and it is obtainable by a buyer under contract rather than by a website. So treat the response as part of your diligence. A well-run association usually produces the file without much difficulty. If the answer is that nothing can be located, you are pricing a building whose repair history you cannot read, and that belongs in the number you offer.
How much time should I build into my option period for The Royalton's association documents?
The association has ten days from a written request to produce a resale certificate, and the certificate a seller furnishes has to be prepared no earlier than three months before it is delivered. Ask for the whole list the day you go under contract, because an option period is a poor time to start asking.
Four documents come from the seller under statute: the declaration, the bylaws, any association rules and a current resale certificate. The ten-day clock on the certificate runs from a written request by the owner, so the request has to be made before the clock can run at all. Three more are asked for rather than furnished: the board minutes and engineering reports covering the 2022 repair, the insurance history, and the current reserve study. None of those carries a statutory clock, which is the practical reason to request them first rather than last. Two sit outside the association entirely: the current federal flood map for this address and an elevation certificate if one exists. This site publishes no flood zone for the building, because it has not been able to retrieve one from the federal map service, and it will not guess at a zone it has not read. While you wait on the file, read the coverage a seller will be asked about anyway: our account of the 2022 evacuation and what the engineers reported.
Will you go through the resale certificate with me and price the home before I make an offer?
Send us the unit and ask for a valuation on that specific home. Tell us which of the 27 plans it is, which floor and which way it faces, and the assessment the certificate reports, and we price it against sold homes of the same plan rather than against the building median.
What comes back is a comparable set of sold homes of the same plan, notes on what that plan and exposure give you, a valuation range, and the source named for every figure in it. For context, the median sale price across homes sold since March 2026 is $661,500, the average price per square foot on sold homes is $375, homes closed at about 94.6 percent of asking, and the median went under contract after 26 days, all as of September 2026. Those figures describe the band this address occupies. They do not price a home. We will also read the documents with you: which of the fourteen required statements on the certificate to take first, which records to request outside it, and which questions belong with your attorney rather than with us. What we will not do is guess. The plan set is not a public document and no published source sets this tower out floor by floor, so we say what we have read and name what we have not.