Banks razing newly constructed housing .....

[dos pelos]

Looks like desert area of So.California,builder fails,banks raze properties.Must be cheaper to destroy rather than pay maintenance and taxes.A video:

http://www.youtube.com/user/visionvictory?blend=1&ob=4

[Warpy]

1. The bank would need to secure those properties

against vagrants and vandals, which means that the doorless and windowless, partially built houses would have to have doors and windows or at least plywood boarding them up. It is far cheaper to bulldoze them at this point.

Houses that are closer to completion are generally boarded up for the duration of the crisis. I saw that happen in the 70s when the last housing collapse happened due to prohibitively high interest rates. Ten years later, the boards came off and the houses were completed.

However, places that are only framed and sheathed, with or without rough plumbing and wiring, aren't really worth trying to secure for 10 years.

It looks like the places in the video are the typical McMansion houses that aren't selling anywhere now that speculators aren't using them as investment properties.