Condos at Boerum and Dean, developed by Philip Mendlow in 2002.

Brooklyn has long been known for its townhouses, but usually they're prewar brownstones. New development, on the other hand—at least the market-rate kind—tends to be multifamily, with developers cramming in as many small units as they can in send-ups of Manhattan condo towers.

But developers have started to warm to the single-family spreads (and not surprisingly, given the soaring cost of Brooklyn townhouses). Following on the heels of Carroll Gardens' Sackett Union townhouses (six left, if you've got $4 million burning a hole in your pocket) and the Landmarks Preservation Commission's approval of Dumbo's first new townhouses comes word that five new townhouses are in the works for... well, we're not quite sure whether it's Boerum Hill or Cobble Hill, and we'd rather scratch out our eyes than call it BoCoCa(Go?), so we'll just go with the historical term for the entire swath and call it South Brooklyn.

Bluerock Real Estate just picked up 91 feet of vacant land for $3.32 million, currently mapped as 321 and 325 Pacific Streets, and plans to build five townhouses, the company told The Observer. (They also picked up 330 Atlantic Avenue on the same block for $1.42 million, but wouldn't divulge what they intended to do with the property.)

"We're developing the Pacific Street lots to start with," Bluerock Senior Vice President and Development Manager Philip Mendlow told The Observer. He went on to describe the five four-story single-family houses that company plans to build, four of which will have garages, with 3,300-3,400 square feet of floor space each.

"I'm not going to name an architect—he's not well known," Mr. Mendlow said, "but the façades will be totally contextual to the landmark district."

"The five houses will look different from one another," he continued. "They're mostly brick, but there will be some brownstone. We're trying to develop an architectural vocabulary from the neighborhood—a couple of them will look like carriage houses, and the one without a garage will refer more to the brownstone character."

While Bluerock is a relative newcomer to New York (The Charles, on First Avenue in Manhattan, was stalled for much of the recession, but has recently showed signs of life), Mr. Mendlow is not. "I've built in New York a number of times," he said. "There's a building at the corner of Dean and Boerum Place that I built about ten years ago.

The Pacific Street townhouses, on the other hand, are due for delivery in the summer of 2014.

Buyers are flocking to new construction, including Carroll Gardens' Sackett Union.

Remember the days when condo developers were sinking shiny new celebratory shovels into the ground every other day and the line of buyers eagerly waiting to sign their names to deeds seemed endless? Well, we may not be in in boom times quite yet, but we are definitely out of bust times and the buyers are once again lining up to sign deeds for as-yet unbuilt condos in hot neighborhoods, The New York Times reports.

One of the most popular condo projects mentioned by The Times include 200 East 79th Street, which opened for sales last month and now has 25 of its 39 units in contact. Also going like hot cakes are the town houses and condos at Sackett Union, a Carroll Gardens project that opened sales in late August. A month later, half of the units were in contract.

Other condo projects that can, at best, offer potential buyers a model unit and some floor plans, are seeing such strong sales, according to The Times, that they've been raising prices on the units every month. This has been happening for some time, of course, with super-luxe buildings—take One57's stellar sales record (if we can focus on that again after the crane near-catastrophe) and 18 Gramercy Park, which sold more than half its units in a few months, then promptly raised prices. But as of last December, the market for trophies and other super-prime properties has come roaring back at a rate that has yet to be duplicated by the luxury market's lower echelons.

But the rising rates of more run-of-the-mill condo sales (they're basically all luxury as well, of course, but well within the lower realms) suggests that all of the luxury real estate market may be on its way to rebounding.

The only problem with buying new (or unfinished) construction, of course, is that you're never sure exactly what you'll be getting. Beautiful glass curtain walls may leak, common charges may balloon and views may disappoint.

kvelsey@observer.com