I only know what I see walking around the neighbourhoods I frequent: buildings (usually single-family dwellings, but sometimes low-rises) that have sat half-completed, with no active construction, for months or even years.
I’ve always assumed it was a result of either the development company or their general contractor going out of business / running out of budget before completion; and that, when construction resumes, it’s because the site has been liquidated and sold at auction to a new developer.
Other times, buildings (usually commercial) are left 90% finished for years at a time—clad and insulated, but not wired or finished inside. I assume this these buildings are actually as finished as they’re going to get, and are for sale, waiting for an initial owner to decide how they want to finish them (instead of having to rip out and redo the previous interior and exterior), and they just aren’t being publically advertised. They still look kind of like blighted abandoned buildings, though, and kind of destroy the character of a neighbourhood in a similar way to the half-built homes.
You can both be right! Most buildings could be finished quickly, but at any given point time there will be more delayed buildings than ones being quickly constructed. This is for the same reason that most people who go to prison in the US do so for a sentence less than six months, and yet the prison population at any point is mostly people with > 10 year sentences.
If you want a "fun" story about an unfinished commercial building, just google "I-4 eyesore".
Down in Orlando (actually Altamonte, but if you're not from Central Fla, it's Orlando), there's a building a local mega-church has been "constructing" since 2001. They wanted to build it with no financing, and kept putting construction on hold every time they ran out of funds. Pretty sure at this point they've spent more in property taxes for a building they can't use than they would have spent in interest if they'd just financed it from the start, but, shrug.
It's a pretty ugly building design to begin with, too. All those mirrored windows are blinding when the sun hits them the right way.
That's one freaky building but organizers probably figured ...the Lord will provide which can be countered with Aesop's Hercules and the Wagoneer moral the gods help those who first provide the gods something to work with (ie labor and resources not just wishes). On observation, how lax have the lower-medium-income housing building codes become in the Orlando area? I live in a sprawling one-story house built like a concrete bunker in SW FL which survived the 140mph winds of hurricane Charlie and others (also helps it's 21 feet above sea level so somewhat immune to surges), with damage only to a pool cage. But in hurricane aftermaths you saw flimsy garden apartment frame-construction type structures demolished by broken trees and flying debris. Yet today you still see relatively dense pack housing being constructed the same way. Seems sad, knowing their inevitable fate.
They swear it will be finished this year, which they've said before, but there is actually construction currently ongoing at the site, which is a good sign, I suppose. I live north of Orlando, so I have to drive by it anytime I head that way.
As for building codes, I'm not sure. I just moved back down to central Fl after living in Gainesville the past 20 years. I do know that 30 years of living in Florida has taught me to never buy a mobile home. Hurricanes flatten those. I feel bad for the folks that don't have the ability to afford something more sturdy.
There's a lot of new construction in the next neighborhood over from mine (old golf course turned housing development), but I'm not sure if they're stick-frame houses or concrete. It's also an upscale development, not lower-middle-class.
Fair enough, single family homes are a different story because holding costs are so low, and the owner is usually financing the construction. Larger projects have significant construction mobilization (just the crane is costing hundreds of thousands) and the developer has already presold many or all of the units. I would estimate bankruptcy happens on less than 1% of our projects (we design about 30% of the residential towers you see being constructed in the lower mainland). That number probably shoots up for smaller projects.
Commercial units are left that way even for leasing, because the tenant will come and finish it to their specifications (once a tenant is found).
For these large projects, I've noticed something else that I've been curious about: condo projects that sit as empty lots with "coming soon" banners around them, for years at a time before they begin construction.
What's up with that? My first guess: by the time the developer gets zoning approval, the contractor they've retained has taken other work, and now they're waiting in line.
Yeah, a lot of the delay is coming from the rezoning and permitting process. There are crazy wait times for large projects because of the large queue of applications, understaffed planning departments, public consultations, and semi-extortionary negotiation over community amenity contributions (CACs). Often the trades aren't brought on board that early because the delay and uncertainty of whether the project will go forward. Once a permit is received, then it's usually full steam ahead and we are often asked to product tender and construction drawings in impossible timelines.
I remember seeing nearly finished building in Croatia, lacking only the exterior finish, but (apparently) with people living Inside. I first though it was a cost-cutting measure, saving on seemingly unecessary work, but I've also heard it was to avoid taxes on buildings.
When I first moved to Romania I saw the same and always wondered why. Now I built a small home and left it like this so I don't pay taxes (wanted to build, leave there a year of two and sell).
You also don't pay as much taxes when sold not finished.
Haiti had/has the same rule: property taxes only applied to finished structures, so many of the rural dwellings were left unfinished.
When my wife volunteered there right before the earthquake she said that many structures had exposed rebar sticking out of the concrete. She thinks that increases the fatalities significantly.
That was my exact memory of Croatia - I remember so many nearly finished buildings with "rebar" sticking out of the top of walls or unfinished exteriors - and they looked like they'd been that way for a while.
Personnaly I did not see that many of them and they were all inland, not on the coast, where the housing market might be different.
Also the remnants of the war had a much bigger impact on my memories of the country: we saw a few buildings still covered with bullet holes and areas cut off because of mines. That nearly two decades after the war such things were still visible was an interesting experience.
I’ve always assumed it was a result of either the development company or their general contractor going out of business / running out of budget before completion; and that, when construction resumes, it’s because the site has been liquidated and sold at auction to a new developer.
Other times, buildings (usually commercial) are left 90% finished for years at a time—clad and insulated, but not wired or finished inside. I assume this these buildings are actually as finished as they’re going to get, and are for sale, waiting for an initial owner to decide how they want to finish them (instead of having to rip out and redo the previous interior and exterior), and they just aren’t being publically advertised. They still look kind of like blighted abandoned buildings, though, and kind of destroy the character of a neighbourhood in a similar way to the half-built homes.