Group Housing Scheme In Christchurch A Success

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28016, 10 July 1956, Page 6

Group Housing Scheme In Christchurch A Success

Not one of the 798 houses built in Christchurch under the group housing scheme up to the end of May has had to be taken over by the State Advances Corporation under the guarantee to builders that the corporation will buy at a specified price if the house is unsold two months after completion.

Grouo home building is big business in Christchurch and it would become bigger if more Crown leasehold sections became available. Big firms and individual builders- are building the houses. At the beginning of June 122 houses were under construction and the number has increased since then. An executive officer of the firm which has built the biggest number—other firms are only a few behind its total of nearly 200—said yesterday that it was very happy with its experience under the group scheme. It had found that houses valued at £2300 or £2400 W’ere in most demand, the deposits being £.300 or £4OO. but some difficulty was being found by homeseekr’-s in raising additional amounts of deposits for homes valued at £2BOO or £2900. Two guarantees are given by the Crown under the scheme. The first is to the builders—that any houses unsold two months after completion will be taken over, at an agreed price, for State housing purposes. The second is to the intending purchasers—of a State Advances loan. The State Advances Corporation has not had to buy in one house in Christchurch. The scheme has grown to the highest expectations of the corpora-

tion. The slowing-up in sales of the group houses is attributed to the fact that houses built on freehold sections take a little longer to sell than those on leasehold sections. Crown sections were readily available at the beginning of the group scheme. Those reserves of land have gone. Builders themselves are searching for freehold sections and building on them low to medium-cost houses. Moves are being made by builders to buy areas of freehold land for development into sections for group houses and also to make sections available to smaller builders. Financing is always a problem for the average home-seeker and buyers of houses on freehold sections require more capital than when the houses are on leasehold or Crown sections, bought on terms. The experience in Christchurch has been that group houses have been sold when they are halffinished when on leasehold plots but that sales of houses on freehold sections usually hang fire until the houses have been painted and are ready for occupation.