Around the country and over the last several years huge new high rise and mid-rise condo communities have been all the rage. Primary residents, second home buyers and investors bought everything in site before ground was even broken and communities sold-out often times before developers had models to show.

Here's what's hot for 2006...smaller in-fill loft, row house, and brownstone communities. People are sick of high gas prices, long commutes, and impersonal corporate retail chains. They want to live closer to everything, feel like their part of a community and support smaller mom & pop style coffee houses, boutiques and markets. And with real estate prices soaring over the last couple years these people recognize they might have to compromise size for affordability. All these factors results in a perfect growth opportunity for smaller in-fill projects.

Look for smaller developers to put together little (4 to 40 unit) communities on vacant lots throughout the larger cities in the U.S. These developers are often using a lot of their own money (or the money of friends and family) to launch the project so they have a very vested interest in the success of the project. They are often times architects or designers or are simply pationately interested in cool design and unique architecture. With this kind of commitment, buyers will often find a higher degree of quality and (heaven forbid) even craftsmanship in these smaller projects than what we are used to seeing in the large corporate backed projects. If done right, these small developers will see tremendous success over the next couple of years and buyers in their communities will enjoy wonderful rewards.