Coruscation

"My buyers have found that construction quality went down as the boom years progressed," said Tom Demsker, who runs Demsker Realty, a specialist in downtown dwellings. "It seems like things were put together a little more hastily. We have seen issues like the leveling of the floor, the grouting of the tiles, the way the cabinets were hung, that lead you to believe things were probably done faster than they should have been."

Earlier vintages tend to have larger bedrooms and sensibly restrained common areas; sellers are potentially more negotiable; and lawsuits against developers are usually over and done with. And early-boom buildings tend to have fewer investor-owned apartments.