CONDOS GAINING POPULARITY.

Byline: Eugene Tong Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - With many potential buyers priced out of single-family homes by the red-hot real estate market, condominiums are becoming a popular alternative, with builders ready to oblige.

At least three proposed developments with a total of 962 multifamily housing units - apartments or condos - are under city planning review. The owners of the Prado apartments along McBean Parkway recently filed a plan with the city to convert hundreds of units to condos for individual sale.

Even the recently-approved Newhall Land and Farming Company subdivision Riverpark contains 657 multifamily units, compared with 432 single-family homes planned for the 695-acre site north of the Santa Clara River.

Condominium sales were brisk in April, with 186 units sold - the second-highest monthly total since the record was established two years ago, according to a report from the Southland Regional Association of Realtor's Santa Clarita Valley Division. The median price of a resale condo was $330,000 - $28,000 more than a year ago.

It's a relative bargain compared with the record high median price $552,000 for a single-family home sold in the same period.

``Because of the pricing, condos are in real high demand, and they've been going up in value because of demand,'' said Mike Davis, the division's president. ``The entry-level market or people downsizing are candidates.''

Besides affordability, many empty-nesters are turning to condos or condo communities out of convenience.

``At one time, it was a stopover to getting a home,'' Davis said. ``People are now looking at condo and town houses as a way to live. ... You have no maintenance of the yards, you have someone taking care of the parameters ... and you get the advantages of all the facilities.''

Eric Kenney, a managing partner for Prado's Houston, Texas-based owner Hanover Co., said market conditions are ripe for condo sales.

``When you set the (search) parameters for homes under a million and only see three or four listings ... it would appear so,'' he said. ``The high cost of new housing and resale housing makes condominium conversion attractive because it has the ability to put a more affordable ownership opportunity into the hands of the public.''

In fact, most luxury apartment developers have plans to covert when it's their time, Kenney said.

``Many developers are recording tentative track maps to preserve their right to convert to a condominium form of ownership in the future,'' he said. ``Almost every market-rate apartment project being constructed currently in Los Angeles County has a tentative track map associated with it.''

Glenn Adamick, vice president of planning for Newhall Land, said empty-nesters and seniors are likely driving the current market. They've made a killing selling the homes they've lived in for decades and are looking for smaller digs.

``You're seeing more of that because that's how the market is and there are a lot of folks in that generation,'' he said.

Not all condos are created equal - some are apartments and town houses, while others are clusters of detached homes built around paseos, pools and other shared amenities. Still, they all share the desire by builders to pack as many residents in a limited space as buyers will allow.

``Builders are looking for what sells quick and fast and affordable,'' Davis said. ``They can put more units on that space.''

Santa Clarita, which is close to build-out, has 2,311 multifamily units approved or recorded by city planners, compared with 3,458 houses. In unincorporated Los Angeles County, which is still sparsely populated, it's 165 multifamily units to 16,206 houses.

As city population continues to grow, from 171,000 to more than 242,000 projected for 2030, building condominiums is becoming one way to meet demand as land becomes scarce, said Lisa Hardy, a city planning manager.

``It's actually more 'smart growth' to design in a cluster fashion,'' she said.

Newhall Land's Adamick believes the popularity of condos is here to stay.

``I think you're going to see a bit more multifamily in the future,'' he said. ``We have communities in the Newhall Ranch specific plan that are characterized as a more urban feel - similar to Town Center in Santa Clarita.''

Eugene Tong, [phone]

eugene.tong(at)dailynews.com