Dive Brief:

• After a lull during the recession, some builders are back in the market with large (think 5,000 to 15,000 square feet) and expensive ($10 million to maybe as much as $50 million) speculative houses.
• The new houses are modern, built of steel and concrete with lots of glass and ceilings sometimes reaching over 20 feet high, with open floor plans that make for speedier construction.
• Sometimes, the modern is being married to the traditional as builders add flat-roofed, glass-walled spaces to existing homes.

Dive Insight:

High-end spec is not an every-market phenomenon. Some places where it is blooming again, though, are Miami, Los Angeles and Colorado. There also is a modern movement in Long Island's tony Hamptons. Some of the revival owes to foreign buyers and a more adventurous aesthetic, and some to U.S. buyers who are looking for a house that does not look like all the other rich people's homes.