This is a very common thing all over Egypt, since you don't have to pay tax on a building until it's done. So builders will put up a shell and then sell rooms or memberships or whatever, and use that money to complete it. People buy apartments literally years, sometimes decades, before they'll ever be able to live in them. It's accepted business practice.

Wild. I saw this exact rug hanging on someone's cubicle at work today (I work for an engineering and security company that does a fair amount of demining work in Afghanistan).

That's probably Newburgh, Orange County, New York, but the story's from an Illinois station, so I can't be certain.