To keep their costs down and profits up, some builders use the cheapest paint available, even though it’s likely to fail in a few years. This paint is known in the industry as “contractor flat”. If it does peel, the remedy is to scrape off all the loose and cracking paint, and prime the whole wall or ceiling with a clear sealer such as Zinsser’s Gardz, which hardens and improves the strength of the old paint so that it’s less likely to keep peeling. Then the scraped areas can be patched with joint compound, and primer and finish can be applied.

In this house all the ceilings had to be redone:

Seems like a lot of unnecessary work, but some people need to keep their expenses down when they purchase a home, and are willing to risk having to spend more later when more funds are available.