STATE MONEY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 187, 9 August 1930, Page 9

STATE MONEY.

HOUSES ON MARKET.

OCCUPIERS' DIFFICULTY.

WORKERS' HOMES ABANDONED

ADVANCES TOO HIGH.

"There's a batch of 50 instructions to sell properties on which the Government has lent money," said a prominent land agent this morning, when asked about the losses facing the Department of State Advances. He produced . his file, and it showed cottages for sale all over the district from Castor Bay down to Otahuhu. One has merely to look at the advertisements in the "Star" to see that many other mortagees are also anxious to sell. Every day several properties come under the hammer; it. is the inevitable accompaniment of bad times.

"The Government adopted the- foolish policy of advancing 95 per cent of the value of a property," said another agent, "and that was in times when all values were inflated. Now that values have come down with a rush, the places on which the Government lent money are actually not worth the amount advanced, and no agent in the world could get the prices the Government are asking. There is only one thing to be done, and that is to face the loss; the Government will have to lose the difference between the sum lent and what the property will bring to-day in a dead market."

Buyers to-day only •want bargains, and will not look at properties priced as high as those the Government is now anxious to get rid of. Almost without exception the properties are of the same class—places built for the workers. Most of the places the Government wants to sell have been abandoned by the mortgagors, who found it quite impossible to keep up the. .payments. The people who got in early and got their money at the cheaper rate of interest are said to be. holding on to their places, but the people who built after the Government had to raise the interest (up to about M per cent) have not been able to hold on through the present bad times.