Half-built homes can be bargains – but with strings attached
First came foreclosure sales, then short sales. Now Central Florida is seeing more half-finished homes for sale: bare-stud, bare-yard houses abandoned by their builders and left to languish on the market.
Purchasing a partially built home is nothing new; during the housing boom, many new-home contracts were signed before even a slab had been poured. The difference now is that the builder might no longer be around to finish the job, particularly if it’s a house started by a custom builder who subsequently lost clients, financing … or its entire business.
“If I had known three years ago that my business would be based on selling short sales, foreclosures and half-built houses, I would have told you you were smoking crack,” said Kelly Price, a veteran real-estate broker based in Winter Park. She is trying to sell three partially complete houses for banks that took possession of them from a builder or owner in financial trouble.
Officials in Orange County say they aren’t sure how many partially built homes are in such limbo, partly because back in March they gave builders a one-year extension on their building permits. Also, builders often deliberately delay work on new homes, putting off completion until the new year for tax purposes. Nationally, the percentage of incomplete houses among new homes listed for sale rose this year from 39 percent in January to 43 percent as of October, according to the U.S. census. Though those numbers included homes under contract and still under construction, they also included unfinished homes abandoned by builders and placed on the market by banks.