The Herald:  Condo towers rise again in U.S. rebound

Bloomberg News

June 12, 2014

LOS ANGELES — For the first time since the U.S. housing crash, new condominium towers are sprouting in downtown Seattle, Boston and Los Angeles as developers bet on the return of the riskiest type of residential real estate.A 41-story tower rising in Seattle is the first phase of the largest condo development ever in the city. Buyers are signing deals to reserve units in two new high-end projects in Boston. In Los Angeles, a 22-floor building is slated for construction later this year, the first ground-up high-rise condo project downtown since 2005. Construction cranes also spike the skylines of Washington, Houston, Miami, New York and San Francisco as financing gradually returns to a real estate class that lenders shunned for years. Condos are regaining favor after a surge in rental demand pushed the U.S. apartment-vacancy rate to the lowest level in a decade, sending urban rents soaring, while the inventory of for-sale housing remains historically low. “We’re in the very early stages of a long recovery in condos,” said Sam Khater, deputy chief economist for Irvine, California-based CoreLogic. “Now you’re seeing rental booming, but today’s renters are going to be tomorrow’s condo buyers.”  Read more: