One thing that you soon notice when you come to Ecuador is the amount of unfinished houses and apartments in varying stages of completion.
In the bottom right hand window, you can see a big pile of sand ready for if/when building recommences
It’s quite a difference from Australia where it’s unusual to see many half-finished buildings, and where town or planning regulations, or mortgage conditions may require that a building be completed within a certain period of time.
It’s something that you can’t help noticing here, and I’ve asked around to try to understand what’s going on.
There seem to be two main schools of thought. The first being that if houses are not finished, then you don’t have to pay property tax on them.
And the second being that Ecuadorians tend to build when they have money, and when the money runs out, the building works are postponed.
It looks like they are building an additional floor onto an older ground floor
When we first moved to Cuenca, there was an apartment building under construction a couple of blocks from our house. The outside walls were up and the roof was on. And nothing happened for months. Then one day we saw workmen there, putting up internal walls, putting in the roller doors for the garage. Then after a few weeks of work, again nothing. A few months went by and we realised that somewhere in that period of time the outside of the building had been painted. Then somewhere after that the windows went in. As far as we know the building is still empty, and that’s more than two years from when we first noticed it.
There are other partly-finished buildings we’ve watched in that 2 year period and nothing has happened at all.
This mud brick house could do with a little maintenance … Or a lot …
Now, as to the first theory on why this happens – not having to pay property tax on unfinished buildings. We talked to a brother who is building a little house on some land about 1 ½ hours out of Cuenca. He pays property tax on his land and his house is barely started. It costs him all of $6 per year.
We asked a couple who have lived in Ecuador most of their lives, speak English and have lived in the States for a few years, run a business in Ecuador and are aware of what goes on in Ecuador. They disagreed with the property tax theory and said that building according to the cash available is just how Ecuadorians do things.
Unlike western countries where credit is king and most people borrow money in order to buy or build a house, apparently most Ecuadorians do not. Credit is not such a big thing here.
An article in Cuenca High Life of April 20, 2014 said:
“A new study shows that 69% of homes in Cuenca are owned by their occupants. It is the highest rate of home ownership in Ecuador, according to the Ecuador Ministry of Economic and Social Inclusion.
“The study … also showed that … 62% of homes are owned outright with no mortgage …”
The finished version – sometimes that does happen!
If people do borrow in order to build a house or part of a house, generally the money is not in the form of a bank loan, rather, it comes from the government social security service at quite a low rate of interest. And when the money from that loan has been spent on building, people wait until they can save up or can afford to pay off another loan, and then continue building.
This is a new build near us – the cement is still wet
When we were first here, I found the amount of unfinished buildings a bit depressing and ugly. They are still somewhat ugly (a lot of buildings are made with concrete blocks, and unfinished, unpainted concrete blocks with boarded up windows are just not pretty!), but once you get used to it and understand why it works that way, it’s easier to live with. And you learn to “tune it out”.
This one appears to have been here a while. On the wall is painted “se vende” (for sale)
Some houses are just not finished at all and no-one lives in them. You can tell by the state of the concrete and the weathering that they have sat there for quite a while. With some houses, it has probably been years and years. Others, maybe just months.
This one’s been here a while too – long enough for moss to start growing on the walls
Other houses may have more than one level, but only one level is finished and lived in. Most of the new houses being built here are 2 or 3 storeys and may be designed to have one family on one level, another on the next level, etc. It’s not uncommon to have 3 generations all living in the one house. So perhaps the bottom level is finished and is lived in, and the next level or two have the outside walls up, but for now, that’s that. Or maybe they didn’t even get that far.
Steelwork is often left sticking out of rooves – ready for the next level!
With the global economic downturn and people losing their houses, having to move in with their parents etc due to the cost of housing, the idea of actually having a paid-for house, even if it’s not as finished as it could be, makes a lot of sense.
A random cornfield to finish off with. The corn here grows pretty tall – it’s probably 8-10 feet high
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