THE BUILDING TRADE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 137, 13 June 1933, Page 6

THE BUILDING TRADE.

Your correspondent '-New Erah" shows a lamentable lack of knowledge in building costs and then proceeds to make insinuations about my properties. I would like to make it clear that all my houses arc in good localities, almost new and thoroughly modern, and let to good tenants, and I can boast of being one of the handful of builders who lias so far survived the slump. I say emphatically that house property is a very poor investment and that quack remedies will not revive the trade. Only a general improvement in the purchasing power of the people can improve any trade. I thought I made it clear that the timber in an ordinary house is only about one-third of the cost of the building, sometimes only about a quarter, while the builders'- hardware, including paints, papers, electrical fittings and plumbers' requirements, is about half the cost. All increased 20 per cent with the exchange and sales tax. Luckily this midnight act of folly did not catch mo in tljo early stages of a job.. What is the sense of hitting a thing on the head with an axe and then offering it a spoonful of milk to help it to recover? The thing to do with any stagnant industry is to take the taxes and unnecessary restrictions off; it, not load it down with more. A house should 110 more be subject to a tax by the council, than the furniture-in it. -Public utilities and improvements add 110 more to the value of a house than to the furniture in it. Cheap land and cheap material made permanent by eliminating gambling in land is the crux of the question. OLD AUCKLAND BUILDER.