STATE HOUSE RENTS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20634, 14 August 1941, Page 4

STATE HOUSE RENTS

IMPROVED RETURNS LOWER INTEREST RATES (Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. Rents from the new State houses last year amounted to £576,538. This, according to the State Advances Corporation report, is an improvement, being a surplus of £9165, compared with the loss of £2520 in the previous year. The better result arises mainly from the fact that the average rate of interest paid on borrowed funds was on a lower basis than that operating during 1939-40. The greater volume of transactions arising from the letting of additional houses is having a beneficial effect on the trading results as the management and overhead charges do not in every case proportionately increase with ihe revenue. The rural housing section shows an excess of expenditure of £696 but, as practically the whole of the initial cost of organising the scheme is included in these accounts, a deficit was anticipated. The position of rented properties, sold with a loss of £14,371, is better than the previous year when the deficit was £21,322. Depreciation and maintenance are unavoidably high in these older properties. Sixty-six counties have applied under the Rural Housing Act for loans aggregating £700,000 at 3 per cent, and the corporation also gave precedent consent in 207 cases, involving a sum of £142,566. The housing account now has a loan liability of nearly £17,000,000.