SHORTAGE OF HOUSES

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXVIII, Issue LXXVIII, 14 June 1919, Page 4

SHORTAGE OF HOUSES

POSITION OF AUCKLAND

j There is still a fair demand, for houses in the city (states the Auckland Star), though the number of sales ! that are taking place, cannot by any stretch of imagination, be described as abnormal. Many people are desirous.

lof buying houses, but the houses, j generally speaking, are not obtainable on terms that will suit the finances of the would-be purchaser,, who in a great many cases is only prepared to pay a £50 deposit. To the man. who is disposed to sell, so. small a, deposit is useless in view of the fact that immediately he has sold he is faced with the problem of buying another place. The difficulty is increased, of course, by the fact that properties which before the Avar could have been obtained for from £500 to £600, are now on the market at something in the vicinity of £900. Some people who: are in- a position to buy &re holding off in the hope that there will be a drop in prices. Whether this will take place,, for some time at least, is doubtful. True, roofing iron and other imported' materials have already come down considerably in price, and there are people who advance the opinion that iron for building purposes will shortly drop still further. But in the actual cost of a building the imported material only amounts to a comparatively small percentage of the total, and timber is not likely to come down very much in price, if at all. It does not appear likely, therefore, that there will be any material reduction for a very considerable time in the cost of building a new house. Still, there is a certain amount of speculative building going on, though this is not sufficient to meet the demand*.