A report from the Seattle Times in Washington. "Seattle’s housing builders are starting to party like it’s 2005: That’s right, condos are back. Developers who spent the past several years building just about everything except condos are pivoting back to them for the first time since the housing bust last decade."

"For years, housing developers could just build apartments instead of condos because the rental market was on fire. Why bother with the risk of condos when rental apartments were easy money? But as a flood of tens of thousands of new apartments washed over the Seattle-area market, rents have essentially stopped rising over the past year."

"In some cases, builders sitting on plans for approved apartment projects suddenly can’t get construction funding from banks because of the cooling rental market. So they face three options: wait to see if rents surge back up again, sell the development site or switch to condos."

"'Developers are kind of like sheep,' said Windermere broker Jeff Reynolds. 'There’s just so much apartment supply now. The next cycle they’re seeing is just going condo.'"

"In downtown high-rises, the priciest type of construction, condos are being priced even higher. 'It doesn’t make sense to build condos without that premium price point,' said Marc Coluccio, chief operating officer for SolTerra developers in Seattle. Otherwise 'you can lose money as a developer.'"

"Ahmed Gharib, 27, a project manager at Facebook, has been looking around for a potential new condo in Seattle recently and has taken note of the new supply forthcoming. 'I still think a lot of them are pretty over-priced,' Gharib said, noting some units are priced over $1 million. 'That’s like New York-level pricing.'"

"There are signs that condos could be the next sector of the housing market to cool off, however. The number of condos on the market in King County has more than doubled in the past year, while sales have dropped 30 percent. Condo inventory still remains at half the long-term average, but rising inventory and falling sales often foretell drops in actual prices."

"The Solis project had an open house earlier this month and received tentative reservations for about half the units, with buyers preferring the cheapest condos. Even six months ago all of the units would have been snapped up immediately, Coluccio said."

"Two years ago, about 130 eager buyers lined up, some camping out a day ahead of time, to secure rare new units in one of the only Seattle condo buildings going up in years; a similar scene played out at another condo sales event in February. But this month, sales previews for four new condo projects produced only a few people who showed up ahead of time far more people were lined up at a sneaker store nearby, according to condo broker Matt Goyer."

"The condo bust is still fresh on many people’s minds. A decade ago, a flood of new condos hitting the market coincided with the housing crash and recession, a disastrous outcome for developers. In all, condo prices plummeted 46 percent in King County over five years, from the peak in 2007 to the low in 2012."

"Gharib sees both ends of the market: In addition to shopping for a new condo, he also owns one on Capitol Hill, and knows he could sell it for a healthy gain over what he paid in 2016. He’s keeping a close eye on the condo projects set to flood the market with new units in coming years but isn’t sure whether it’s worth reserving one ahead of time."

"'If you’re bullish (on the market) it makes sense. If you’re not bullish, it doesn’t make sense,' Gharib said. 'I would suspect they’re not going to sell out as quickly as they used to. And then it’s a question of what’s left over and who is willing to make cuts with their pricing.'"