CORRESPONDENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 90, 13 October 1938, Page 8

CORRESPONDENCE

OWNING OR RENTING

(To the Editor.?

Sir, —The State rental houses are well and truly built. The Minister and heads oi the Housing Department inspected twenty-three houses that were erected at Karori under assistance from a building society, and the State houses are similar thereto.

The same building contractor subsequently built some of the houses at Miramar, which the letter of Messrs. L. A. C. Warner and D. Ryan refers to, in your issue of October 12, page 28. There is this difference, however, that whereas the construction and appointments are of the same quality, and the sizes similar, those erected under building society finance are sold to the tenants on weekly terms (which include rates, insurance, interest, and repayment of loan) , that are no more than the rentals charged by the State.

Arrangements had been made for a' further twenty-five houses to be erected on adjacent property, but the Housing Department slipped in, paid a higher sum for the land than that at which it had previously been offered, and the land is still vacant. Those who were to have built the houses would have erected at least twelve by this month, and all would have been sold on the same terms: as the others. —I am, etc J. L. ARCUS.