BUILDING COSTS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 2 August 1924, Page 12

BUILDING COSTS.

WHY THEY ARE DEAR IN AUCKLAND. EXPLOITATION DENIED. Referring to the statement made in Parliament, that buyers of houses were being . exploited, an Auckland builder gave some reasons as to why building is dear in Auckland. He declared that if there was any exploitation of the buyer of a home that exploitation was not ou the part of the builder; in fact, tlie cost of erecting a house was so high that speculative building was practically a thing of the past. One of the reasons why the cost of wooden houses was so high, it is pointed out, is that we are only using a small percentage of logs, the remainder going almost absolutely to waste. In the North Island there are millions of feet of sap timber accumulating, which cannot be used in the chief cities on account of the building by-laws. Also, this limber is not allowed to be exported, so that the charge for all operations of felling and cutting have to be put on to the small percentage of the log that is used. ~ ”

“Builders,” said one man, “are in business for profit. When the initial cost of building is too high it is noli profitable for them to build for sale. In some instances they would not be able to sell for what it costs them to build. The next point is that the cost of sections is altogether too high, extraordinarily high. Then, again, for home building, with land at such prices, it is very wasteful to erect fully-detach-ed houses. A semi-detached house would considerably lessen the cost of building, it would have but three wall instead of four, combined drainage and water service, and could be built easily (giving plenty of room) on an 80 feet lot. The quarter-acre restriction in the suburbs of Auckland is one of the greatest factors in increasing cost and rendering building too expensive to be undei” taken as a speculation.” It was stated, there is plenty of monev for speculation, hut that it was certainly not available for building under the existing conditions. A number of houses, it is said, are for sale at verv little above building cost, and one builder stated that, finding it impossible to sell, one bungalow he had erected at reasonable profit, he had let it, and that the rental did not bring in interest on the cost of building.