HOUSES AND OCCUPANTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 February 1931, Page 12

HOUSES AND OCCUPANTS

CONDITIONS IN DOMINION.

Only about 20 per cent of the private dwellings in New Zealand are owned unencumbered by the people who live in them. This is one of the facts noted by the Government statisticians in the material furnished in the 1926 census>. In 1926 there were some 284,241 inhabited private dwellings, and in those a great majority of the Dominion’s population lived under oi?nditions as follow: —Renting their dwelling, 31 per cent.; living rent, free, 8“ per cent.; buying on timepayment, 9 per cent.; carrying a .mortgage exclusive of table, mortgages, 32 per cent.; owners of unencumbered freehold, 2Q per cent. The 1921 census compiled rent statistics for all cities and boroughs on the basis of four, five, and sixroomed private dwellings or flats, These comprised over two-thirds of all private dwellings in 1921, and also in 1926. The average weekly rent actually paid in 1921 was 19/3, and in 1926 was 26/100. It was noted that practically all the examples of high weekly rents were found in Auckland and Wellington cities and their adjacent boi’oughs. Rental values in town districts were also shown. The highest average rents were, almost without exception, found in town districts adjacent to Auckland city—for example, Ellerslie, Papatoetoe, New Lynn, Henderson, and Manurewa’. in general, the lowest rents are exhibited by town districts which form part of counties. The movement of rental values was in sympathy with that of rents. For the urban community, the rental value in 1926 was 26/-'a week for rented houses or flats, and 31/3 a week for non-rented houses. Combining the 63,000 rented dwellings in urban communities under review with the 110,000 non-rented dwellings, a general average of 29/4 a week was obtained.

There was a remarkable increase in the number of occupied flats or apart ments. Flats were first’ officially distinguished at the censufe in 1916, before which they did not exist in large numbers. Between 1916 and 1921 flats increased in number by 15 per cent., and between 1921 and 1926 by 28 per cent. Auckland and Wellington urban areas which between them possessed nearly two-thirds of the flats in the whole country, maintained their numerical superiority, the intercensus increases amounting to 65 per cent, respectively. In 1921 the tworoom flat was most popular in all centres, and the same was true in 1926, except of Auckland, where the three-room flat was in the lead. In general, Wellington’s flats held more people than Auckland’s and a higher proportion of flat dwellers lived under conditions classed as overcrowded. The great, bulk of private dwellings in the .Dominion, it was stated, were well within the “healthy” limit as laid down by competent authorities. Nine out of every ten dwellings according to the publication, were of wood, but the use of concrete and brick was rapidly increasing. In the five years, 1921 to 1926, brick houses increased by .3405, equal to 40 per cent. Building materials in use varied a good deal with the -locality. Thus 18 houses out of every 100 in Dunedin were in brick, while in Auckland or Wellington the proportion was under four per hundred. Consideration of earthquake risks probably explained that fact, in part at least.