HOME-OWNING

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 165, 9 April 1926, Page 8

HOME-OWNING

DOMINION’S ADVANCED POSITION RENT-PAYERS LESS THAN TWO-FIFTHS INTERESTING ANALYSIS OF THE SALARY-WAGE SECTION According to standard authorities, it has been estimated that in New York city as much as two-tliirds of the population are without any registered property. Only a negligible few wage-earners in New York city own their own homes. How far-removed from this state of affairs New Zealand is may be judged by a few statistical facts printed below.

In New Zealand there are 127,058 households, the head of which is a wage-earner or salary earner. Concerning a small proportion of these (4213) information as to the tenure of their property is not available, but an analysis of the balance (125,316) is quite sufficient to indicate the extent or degree of home-owning. The tenures of these 125,310 households include a certain number of (1) unencumbered freeholds, (2) freeholds subject to mortgage, (3) properties in process of being acquired by the occupier on time-pay-ment. If information under these heads is sought from the Government Statistician’s report, based on the 1921 census, a good deal of light is thrown on the situation. The percentages given below are percentages of the figure 125,316 -given above. Various Meanings of Mortgage.

The number of wage-earners or sal-ary-earners who own their own homes, without even a mortgage thereon, is far from being “negligible.” In New Zealand 16,156 of them are in this position, or 12.892 per cent. In the timepavraent division (home-purchase on the instalment plan) there are 12,135, or 9.684 per cent. These people were in process of completing the purchase of their dwelling at the time of the last statistical investigation. A still greater number, 29,407, or 23.166 per cent., appear in the free-hold-subject-to-martgc.ge section. At first glance it might be thought that a person holding a freehold title subject to mortgage is nearer to being the owner than a person who is purchasing on the instalment plan. But in practice it ,is found that such an assumption may be unsafe, because, in very many cases of mortgage, there is nothing to indicate the extent of the owner’s interest. As the Government Statistician remarks, “some 29,407 were cases of mortgaged dwellings, but it is ; mposible to state the precise significance of this class. Owing to the dearth of houses, many were forced to purchase, frequently paying a small deposit and giving a mortgage or mortgages for the balance of the purchase money. As it is well known that, either from disinclination or inability to act otherwise, there was often no intention to do other than substitute, for rent, the payment of interest on mortgage, it is hardly possible to quote this species of ownership in the same class as that designated ‘time-payment.’ ” Non-Mortgaged and Time-Payers Over One-Fifth. The logical deduction from the above is that the unencumbered freehold section, and the time-payment section, may be quoted generally as evidence of home-oiviiiug, and together they accounted for 22.576 per cent, of the total. The mortgaged freehold section adds another 23.466 per cent., but it is impossible to determine in this section the. extent of the owner’s interest, or the degree to which the mortgagors are animated by the home-making spirit, and are genuine home-builders. But whatever way the figures are looked at, and whatever discount is made in the mortgage section, the proportion of wage-earners and salaryearners who own their own homes is far from being as is alleged in New York.

The above quoted New Zealand figures aic even more eloquent when it is remembered that this country has a very high proportion of wage-earners and salary-earners who have no incentive to own a home, because they live rent free. In many employments that are publicly paid (school teaching, for instance) the principle of supplying the employee with a house rent free is found; and New Zealand is a country with a high degree of public employership (Government, local bodies, etc.). The same principle is also found in certain ’professional pursuits. The Government Statistician finds that 19.421 wage-earners or salaryearners live rent free; that is to say, no les,s than 15.498 per cent, have no immediate inducement to have a house of their own, though they may have saved the money for one. Add to that 15.29 per cent, all those people who, being public employees in a country much given to public employership, are supplied with publicly-owned houses at a low rental (example, the rapidly-expanding housing scheme of the Department of Railways), and add all those employees who are liable to fairly frequent transfers from one part of the country to another, and who therefore cannot very well be expected to own homes in places of temporary residence. For such reasons, absence of incentive to home-owning must be even more prevalent than the rent-free figures indicate, and that fact makes the high degree of home-ownership in New Zealand still more remarkable. Rent Payers Less Than Two.fifths. The figures already given cover: (1) Unencumbered freeholds, (2) mortgaged freeholds, (3) time-payment homes; (4) rent-free. Fifthly and lastly, there are the rent-payers. They number 48,197, and they constitute 38.460 per cent, of the whole.- Are there many (or any) countries where the proportion of rent-payers among wage-earners and salary-earners is smaller? Here are the figures assembled : Classification of wage-earners and salary-earners according to the tenure of their dwellings:— Percentage of Number, total, Unencumbered freehold 16,156 12.892 Dlortgaged freehold 29.407 23.466 Tinie-pavment homes ... 12,135 9.684 Rent-free 10,421 15.498 Rent-paying 48,197 88.460 Totals 125,316 100.000 It will be seen that tlie unencumbered freeholders are one-eighth of the total. These frcholders, plus the time-pay-ment section, are considerably over one-fifth of the whole. The mortgaged freeholders are also considerably over one-fifth of the whole. The rent-frees are over one-seventh. And the rentpaving are less than two-fifths. if it be arbitrarily assumed that onehalf of the freehold-subject-to-mortgage people possess no equity, and are merely paying interest in lieu of rent, and if the rent-paying section is reinforced bv adding to it half of the freeholders subject to mortgage, the rent-payers are still barely half (50 per cent.) of the whole. Even on that arbitrary basis, home-owners and rent-frees still number half ct the total wage-earners and salary-earners of i'his ,