Dennis Pflueger and his wife won a rent-free year in a nice new house in an expensive subdivision not far from the headquarters of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. As part of the prize, they then have the option to buy the four-bedroom home for $452,000.
丹尼斯·弗卢格(Dennis Pflueger)和他的妻子赢得了在一栋漂亮的新居里免房租居住一年的机会。这栋房子位于沃尔玛(Wal-Mart Stores Inc.)总部附近的一处高档住宅区。作为奖励的一部分，他们还可以选择花上45.2万美元买下这栋有四间卧室的居室。
Mr. Pflueger, a telephone-cable installer who describes himself as an 'old redneck,' is in the middle of his free year. But the Pfluegers are a bit lonely. Just one other family lives in any of the 28 new or unfinished houses on Foxboro Court. Up the street, a sign announcing 'Elegant Homes' sits on a lot choked with weeds. The block is as quiet as an old ghost town.
自称“大老粗”的弗卢格是个电话线安装工，目前待业。不过，住在这里的弗卢格夫妇有点儿孤单。因为仅仅还有另外一户人家居住在Foxboro Court 28栋全新或者尚未完工的房子里面。街道那头，标着“高雅住宅”的牌子矗立在一片长满杂草的空地上，整个街区就像一座鬼城般寂静无声。
Since real-estate tanked, many new planned communities across the country are half-empty, with for-sale signs outnumbering residents by a large margin.
自从房地产市场陷入困境之后，美国各地许多新规划的居住区里都人烟稀少，挂着“待售”牌子的房屋远比已经出售的要多得多。
Some of the projects abandoned by bankrupt developers are in places that were hotbeds of new housing construction: Southern California, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix. As of July, the percentage of vacant housing stock available for sale or rent stood at 4.8% nationally, the highest figure in at least 33 years, according to Zelman & Associates, a real-estate research firm.
在破产的开发商们弃之不管的项目中，有一部分位于新宅建设的热点板块，比如加利福尼亚州南部、亚特兰大、拉斯维加斯和菲尼克斯。房地产调查公司Zelman & Associates的数据显示，今年7月，美国全国待售或待租的空置房比率为4.8%，创下至少33年以来的最高点。
Daily life in these developments seems a bit post-cataclysmic. Children play on elaborate but empty playgrounds. They walk their dogs past rows of shiny houses that have never been lived in. Voices echo up and down the block. Unfinished houses and vacant lots strewn with construction debris clutter the horizon.
这些居住区里的生活呈现出一片有如浩劫过后的萧索景象：孩子们在设施齐备却空空荡荡的游乐场里玩耍；住户们在一排排光鲜亮丽、却从未有人居住过的房子前 狗；声音回荡在小区的上空；一眼望去，到处都是堆放着建筑垃圾的“烂尾房”和空旷的宅基地。
Robert Waltenspiel lives with his wife and two daughters in a unfinished subdivision in Auburn Hills, Mich. Standing in front of his house, he can see more than 30 weed-choked lots where new houses were supposed to go. The developer halted construction more than two years ago.
罗伯特·沃尔顿施皮尔(Robert Waltenspiel)和妻子及两个女儿居住在密歇根州奥本山(Auburn Hills)一处尚未竣工的小区里。站在自家的房前，沃尔顿施皮尔可以望见30多处被杂草覆盖的的宅基地，此处的开发商已停工两年有余。
'As far as working on my yard and saying, 'Hey, neighbor, want a beer?,' that's not going to happen,' says Mr. Waltenspiel, an account manager for Hewlett-Packard Co.
在惠普公司(Hewlett-Packard Co.)担任客会计经理的沃尔顿施皮尔说，“我在院子里干活的时候总想说一句，‘嗨，邻居，来杯啤酒？’可惜这场面不会出现。”
The hot tub at the community center doesn't work. The communal fountains are dry. Mr. Waltenspiel's kids have no one in the subdivision to play with, so he has to take them to a nearby park for social interaction. His 4-year-old 'will walk up to strange girls in the park and say, 'Hey, will you be my friend?'' he says. 'A, it's adorable. B, it's sad.'
社区中心的大池子干了，喷泉也停了。他的孩子们在这里没有玩伴，所以沃尔顿施皮尔要带他们去附近的公园接触“外面”的世界。他四岁的孩子“会在公园里走到陌生女孩儿的面前，对她们说，‘嗨，你愿意做我的朋友吗？’” 沃尔顿施皮尔说，“一、这个举动很可爱；二、这让人感到悲哀。”
In the past year, roughly 15% to 20% of residential developers have gone out of business, suspended operations or changed their line of work, according to an estimate by the National Association of Home Builders.
美国住宅建筑业协会(National Association of Home Builders)预计，在过去的一年，约有15%到20%的住宅开发商破产、歇业或者转行。
The people who bought into these subdivisions encounter all sorts of other unexpected problems, including burglars looking to steal toilets, appliances and copper wiring. And blight. Krista Anderson, an administrative assistant, lives in a subdivision outside Phoenix where the developer suddenly halted construction last fall, leaving behind not just unfinished houses but also scaffolding, piles of cement and construction material that 'is turning yellow and looks bad.'
而住进这些小区的业主们也遇到了各种各样未曾料想到的问题，比如伺机偷盗马桶、生活用具和铜线的小毛偷──还有满眼的惨淡景象。担任行政助理的克里斯塔·安德森(Krista Anderson)住在菲尼克斯郊外的一个居住区，那里的开发商去年秋天突然停工，遗留下来的不单单是未竣工的房屋，还有“正在变黄，看上去让人不快的”脚手架、成堆的水泥和建筑材料。
Many residents aren't sure exactly who is in charge of mowing the weeds, maintaining the street lights, cleaning up when someone uses open space as a dump.
许多居民不知道该由谁来负责修剪杂草、维修路灯，空地上乱扔的垃圾又该由谁负责清理。
Some residents form especially tight bonds with neighbors 10 or 20 doors down the street. Others relish the peace and quiet.
有些居民和住在十几户开外的邻居建立起了相当紧密的关系，也有些人乐于享受这份安宁。
'With my art and my books, I don't need to go outside,' says Miriam Ramirez, who lives with her husband, a retired doctor, in a stalled subdivision in suburban Atlanta. 'But not everybody's like that.'
米里亚姆·拉米雷斯(Miriam Ramirez)住在亚特兰大郊外一处“烂尾”居住区。她说，“我有艺术和书籍做伴，不需要走出屋门，不过并不是每个人都喜欢呆在家里。” 拉米雷斯和丈夫住在一起，她的丈夫是位已经退休的医生。
Her subdivision, Woodbridge Crossing in Smyrna, 15 miles from downtown Atlanta, was supposed to consist of several hundred garden-style houses. Instead, she lives on a street where most of the roughly 30 units have never been lived in. It's the only inhabited street. Paved roads surround acres of empty lots. At night, she says, Woodbridge Crossing can feel a bit like 'a cemetery.' One plus: She usually has the community swimming pool to herself.
她所在的居住区名为Woodbridge Crossing，地处距离亚特兰大市中心15英里的斯迈纳(Smyrna)。这里本应建起数百幢花园洋房，而如今，在她住的那条街上共约30套房子中，绝大多数从未有人居住过。而且这里是该居住区唯一有居民的街道。铺好的路面围绕着大片的空地。她说，在晚上，Woodbridge Crossing感觉有点儿像一片墓地。不过有一个好处：她经常独自享用社区的游泳池。
In overdeveloped Northwest Arkansas, real-estate officials estimate that property values have been steadily declining since 2007. Early in the decade, the region saw a population explosion as more than 1,000 people a month moved to Bentonville, Rogers and several nearby communities to work for Wal-Mart or one of its 1,250 locally based suppliers. Developers began building new houses at a frantic pace, carving up sprawling farmland into fancy developments with names like Stone Meadow and Kensington Hills.
房地产官业人士估计说，在过度开发的阿肯色州西北，地产价格自2007年以来一直在稳步下滑。本世纪初这一地区的人口迅速增长，每个月都有超过1,000人迁入本顿维尔(Bentonville)、罗杰斯(Rogers)和一些邻近社区，他们是来为沃尔玛或是其1,250家当地供应商工作的。开发商开始以疯狂的速度建造新屋，从前绵延的农田变成了拥有“石头牧场”(Stone Meadow)或者“肯辛顿山”(Kensington Hills)这样名字的新潮小区。
Then the housing market collapsed. Soon developers were defaulting on their loans and declaring bankruptcy. In May, federal regulators seized one Northwest Arkansas lender, ANB Financial, whose portfolio was overloaded with bad construction loans.
此后，美国住房市场一落千丈。开发商们很快开始拖欠贷款，并宣布破产。5月份，联邦监管机构查封了阿肯色西北部的放贷机构ANB Financial，这家公司拥有大量难以收回的建筑业贷款。
Now, many of the region's new subdivisions, with houses that can't be rented, much less sold, are forlorn monuments to disastrous real-estate forecasting. A subdivision called Tuscany, five miles west of Bentonville, was envisioned as an enclave of luxury homes with landscaping meant to evoke an old-world Italian village. Developers installed an enormous hand-built stone wall surrounding several hundred acres of what had been cow pasture. So far, only five houses have been built, and just two sold.
眼下，这一地区许多新建的居民区──房子租不出去，卖出去的就更少了──成为了对房地产市场走势严重误判的标志。位于本顿维尔以西5英里的地方是个名为“托斯卡纳”(Tuscany)的居民区，那里本打算建成一片具有传统意大利乡村风格的豪华住宅。开发商修建了一堵人工堆砌的巨大石墙，将几百英亩曾是牧场的土地围绕其间。迄今为止，仅有五栋房子完工，其中两栋找到了买家。
Carol Trees, who paid $570,000 for a 4,800-square-foot house six months ago, admits the solitude is a bit disconcerting. The good news is that her three children have the run of a pasture longer than several football fields. 'We love it right now,' says Mrs. Trees, a nurse practitioner. 'We sit on our back porch and fantasize that we own all this land.'
卡罗尔·特里斯(Carol Trees) 6个月前花57万美元购买了这栋面积4,800平方英尺的房子，她承认这里的安静令人不安。好消息是她的三个孩子能够在面积超过几个足球场的牧场上玩耍。职业是护理医生的特里斯说，“我们现在喜欢住在这儿，我们经常坐在后门廊上，幻想自己拥有这里的整片土地。”
Then there's Quail Ridge, the temporary home of Mr. Pflueger, his wife, Joyce, and their 11-year-old chihuahua, Peaches.
让我们回到弗卢格、妻子乔伊斯(Joyce)和他们11岁的吉娃娃狗皮奇斯(Peaches)的临时家园──Quail Ridge。
Real Estate Company of Arkansas, a local outfit, had been so eager to sell units that it raffled off a year's free rent for one house. On a cold weekend afternoon last December, more than 1,000 people showed up at the subdivision in hopes of winning the prize.
当地的阿肯色房地产公司(Real Estate Company of Arkansas)急于售房，于是使出抽奖的办法，将小区的一栋房子免租金出租一年。去年12月一个寒冷的周末，超过1,000人抱着中奖的希望出现在这个居住区。
As a marketing effort, the event was a total bust. 'We didn't sell one house,' real-estate agent Michael McKinnon says. 'We didn't get diddly.'
作为促销手段，这次活动简直是失败透顶。房地产经纪迈克尔·麦金农(Michael McKinnon)说，“我们一栋房子也没卖出去，我们一无所获。”
But for the Pfluegers, who won, the outcome appeared to be nothing short of divine intervention. Mr. Pflueger had been out of work for eight weeks. Unable to afford the rent for their $475-a-month apartment, the couple was planning to move into a trailer in their daughter's back yard.
不过对于中奖的弗卢格夫妇来说，这个结果真可谓上帝的安排。弗卢格当时已经两个月没有工作。因为负担不起所住公寓每月475美元的租金，两人计划搬进女儿家后院的露营车。
Suddenly they were moving into a new 3,400-square-foot house with an entertainment center, an outdoor hot tub, stainless-steel appliances and more than enough room to store the 61-year-old Mr. Pflueger's collection of guns and antique fishing reels.
突然之间，他们搬进了一栋面积3,400平方英尺的新房子，这里不仅有康乐中心、露天大泳池、不锈钢用具，还有足够的空间储存61岁的弗卢格收藏的枪支和古董渔线轮。
The last seven months have been an odd existence. Chickens wander by from a nearby farm, poking around in the brush. Not long ago, someone broke into one of the unoccupied houses around the corner. Now the Pfluegers say they pay close attention to passing traffic, but hardly anybody passes by.
过去的7个月发生了许多奇怪的事情。小鸡从附近的农场跑出来，在这里的草丛里跑来跑去。不久以前，还有人闯入了街角的一间空屋。弗卢格夫妇说，现在他们非常留意过往的行人，不过几乎没有人经过。
'There's just no noise,' Mrs. Pflueger said.
弗卢格的妻子说，“这里一点儿动静也没有。”
When their 12 months end, the Pfluegers will move on too -- perhaps to that trailer on their daughter's property. Mr. Pflueger recently found a job but still can't afford to buy the house. 'That's way out of my league,' Mr. Pflueger says. Unless someone else moves in, only one family will be left in the 28 houses on Foxboro Court.
当一年的租期结束后，弗卢格夫妇也会搬出小区──或许住到女儿家的露营车里去。尽管弗卢格最近找到了一份工作，不过他还是买不起这栋房子。弗卢格说，“这根本不是我这样的人能住得起的。”除非有别人搬进来，否则Foxboro Court的28栋房子里到时候就只剩下一家人了。
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