CAR OR HOME ?

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 November 1928, Page 9

CAR OR HOME ?

MELBOURNE’S CHOICE. The number of (house-owners in Melbourne is relatively declining, and the number of rent-payers is increasing, says the real estate expert of the “Argus.” And he thinks the reason is that the time-purchase motor-car is replacing the timepurchase home. If less home-owners means more rentpayers it also means more landlords. And ,according to the expert, the land

agents, who “are noted for their versatility,” are. taking special measures to exploit the new hmdlordry, by financing home-owners so tfliat latter may build new houses for letting. The land agents’ point of view seems to be somewhat as follows: — The young people who used to go in for a long-term .purchase of homes now prefer to buy motor-cars on time-pay-ment. Very well. These young people must have some rented place to live in, so the older people who have completed purchase of their homes are “tapped” to build renting houses. “To meet" the situation, the agents are in-' ducing existing home-owners to become landlords. Lack of ready cash at the present period of reduced incomes need not be a bar to such purchasers of houses. The agent will arrange a full-value mortgage on the purchaser’s present dwelling to enable him to acquire another one or two without payment of cash. The extra houses can be lot for good rentals, and the owhoi's may even hope to .save something out of the rent to reduce the mortgage. Several firms have developed quite an extensive business on these lines, one of them having sold a dozen small

properties in a week.’* - In other words, the older type of prduent home-owners is financed to provide homes that the newer type of imprudent car-owner has need of but will not himself build. To quote again: “The movement may

indicate a tendency of reversion to tenancies in lieu of long-term home purchase. This, in the opinion of some experts, is desirable, as the ideal of one man one home-owner has its disadvantages. It tends to deaden trade.” Incidentally, no doubt, it tends to deaden the motor trade, and that is why the time-payment motor dealers have turned the tables on the timepayment home-sellers. But will trade as a whole be better eff if the money is tied up not in permanent homes but in as a whole be better off >if the money is To this question, of course, the land agents return an emphatic “No.” But as they feel incapable of stopping the motor-car wave, they are glad to find,

by means or tins new ranaiorary, some silver lining to the cloud. According to the “Argus,” land agents have observed for some time that “A decline in the volume of their business has been coincident with a great expansion of tUie motor-car trade. While nobody would doubt that there is a continuous and healthy demand for both motor-cars and real property, it 'is obvious that the time-payment purchase of cars is parallel with the long-term purchase of houses, which has long been a settled industry in Victoria. Mainly it is the younger generation that is buying motor-cars under hire-purchase agreements. It was upon these, young people that agents to a large extent relied for everyday purchases of small houses. To acquire a house before marriage w}ls,the common practice 25 years ago. To-day the ownership of a motor-car is regarded as a reliable preliminary to a successful courtship. Ownership of a car has even supplanted ownership of a house as a first basis of family, fortunes. Moral—lf the motor-car interferes with your home, give up the home.