Halted Building Projects.

[blankster]

If we're heading back into another property recession, it would be logical to expect to see a resurgence in halted or abandoned building projects. A couple of years ago work on building sites was grinding to a halt all over the place. Then as the economy picked up a bit, gradually many of these sites became active again.

So - has anyone noticed any building sites falling silent mid-way recently?

[catmandu]

If we're heading back into another property recession, it would be logical to expect to see a resurgence in halted or abandoned building projects. A couple of years ago work on building sites was grinding to a halt all over the place. Then as the economy picked up a bit, gradually many of these sites became active again.

So - has anyone noticed any building sites falling silent mid-way recently?

A housing estate I visited in central Scotland was abandoned - they're still trying to sell their existing completed houses and the others were built to their foundations before the builders moved out. It's been abandoned for around a year now.

Another one I saw recently - the builders said they had just started again in the last few weeks but the market wasn't great and I don't think they were expecting huge sales.

[montesquieu]

A housing estate I visited in central Scotland was abandoned - they're still trying to sell their existing completed houses and the others were built to their foundations before the builders moved out. It's been abandoned for around a year now.

Another one I saw recently - the builders said they had just started again in the last few weeks but the market wasn't great and I don't think they were expecting huge sales.

East Berks - small development close to me was started in 2009 and is now sold out. Another one (bit bigger) completing and about to start marketing. Another one broke ground last week. Be interesting to see what happens re sales and completion of later phases of the second one/completion of the third one. People will pay over the odds for any old rubbish here though if you can walk to a train station and get on the M4 in 5mins.

[blankster]

A major new development around our way begun about a month ago after years of waiting (nearly 400 homes). It will be interesting to see how far that progresses. I imagine that if the market slumps they'll concentrate on putting in the roads and foundation slabs and leave the rest till later, like what another developer did locally 2 years ago.

[geoffk]

A phase two has just been dropped after phase 1 has over 50% of houses still for sale after three years..prices on phase 1 have dropped from 240k to 180k..belway homes

[okaycuckoo]

Every week I speak to several chippies/sparkies/plasterers (what's the cute name for them?): nearly all are doing small suburban refurbs, whereas before they worked on the big sites that were mothballed.

Groundworkers seem to have been in demand since the start of the year on those sites. One plasterer told me a couple of months ago that he was seeing alot of interest in having him come on site later in the year, the assumption being that some of the old projects were back on track and would need finishing off.

But alot of these guys are still just hoping, none of them really confident.

[Steve K]

plasterers (what's the cute name for them?):

Muck Spreaders..........filthy bunch.

[The Preacherman]

Looks like the builders are getting ready to mothball again. Post-election things have turned pear shape for them.

[Steve K]

Looks like the builders are getting ready to mothball again. Post-election things have turned pear shape for them.

The wife works for a medium sized civil engineering company, they have started making redundancies again.

So if the ground works are not going in there is nothing for the builders to build on and then nowhere for the M&E trades to install their services.

Ding.....Ding......round two.

Steve