At the new community of Seapine Estates, in Egg Harbor Township, NJ, the Pennsylvania builder went bankrupt last summer and ceasing work, leaving open foundations and unfinished homes. This has left the community wide open to invite outsiders in to dump trash, spray graffiti and race cars up and down the empty streets.

As America’s housing market has staggered, homeowners that bought into newly up-rising projects at the wrong time have found themselves stuck in stalled, abandoned or largely unoccupied developments.