When I first started playing, back when there were only 20 levels and no updates, I did a similar thing. I had started trying to keep my SF designed like a town, but I got a little fed up with having to redesign every day. So I grouped all of my buildings in the smallest possible area, had only one road, surrounded the whole think with water and cranked out 1 hour tasks to earn money as quickly as possible. My plan was to accumulate all the buildings and land before actually doing any design work. It took me until about midway through the first Christmas event before I finished buying all the land, and by then I had all the buildings.
However, back then I had no neighbors. Initially, it was because I didn't know anyone else playing the game. Then I found the forum, but still didn't want any neighbors, because I didn't want to have my Lemon Tree stolen. Then there was the shame of having someone see my town in such a state. For those first two events (Halloween and Christmas in 2012), it was possible to finish without having any neighbors (albeit, a bit more work). Now the events seem harder to finish without the help of neighbor. (Granted, I now have a fairly full friends list, so I don't know that it can't be done, it just seems like they are more socially oriented). Perhaps some of these "Hoarder" towns are in a transition state of accumulating before designing, but have added neighbors to help with the special events.
