Sam Zell’s Equity Residential and AvalonBay Communities Inc. are drawing investors back to apartment stocks four months after their best days looked to be behind them.
Their surprise $16 billion deal last week to acquire Archstone Inc. from Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ended a plan by the defunct investment bank for an initial public offering of its biggest asset and halted a 13 percent slide in apartment stocks since their July peak. The slump was driven by concern that rising homeownership and new construction would weaken landlords’ power to raise rents as a mammoth share sale flooded the market.
