HOUSING

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 4 February 1930, Page 3

HOUSING

LAND AGENTS' OPINIONS

IN AUCKLAND AND WELLINGTON

MORTGAGE INTERESTS

The state of affairs in Auckland, where il, is estimated there are 1400 empty houses, prompted a Wellington 'Post" reporter to make some inquiries of land agents here with a view to ascertaining whether building activities had caught up on the undeniable housing shortage existing a year or two ago. There is as yet apparently no falling off in the applications for building permits in Wellington, in fact, if seems likely that the year 1930 will constitute a record if it proceeds as it has started. There is no doubt that Government loans, enabling people to build with small deposits, have caused a great spurt in home building, particularly in the suburbs, and that many of those who have secured the Government money have not yet built, so that it is safe to assume that there will be no immediate falling off in building by private persons lor residences, though builders may have curtailed speculative construction"

Auckland is evidently overbuilt, judging by the following extract from the "Star":— "Agents say that numerous houses built with Government money are empty to-day, the occupiers having failed to keep up their interest and capital payments. One well-known house agent in the city is convinced that the time has arrived when the Government should consider the advisability of recasting its policy in connection with advances for home building. This agent takes the view that it is unsound economically to continue lending money for new homes when there are so many unoccupied houses in the city and" suburbs. Home building is continuing steadily in the city, an average of 460 having been erected annually in the past three years, while new houses in the outer suburbs have gone up by the thousand."

NO DEFINITE SURPLUS

One Wellington agent said that in his experience failure to keep up payments did not exist to the same extent as was stated to be the case in Auckland, nor was the shortage really yet caught up here. "It is true that we have a few houses to let all the time, and that lately rents have been slightly easier, but there is no definite surplus of houses. 1 would say that, from a slight shortage, the position has now become normal. There is certainly an oversupply of houses in New Zealand everywhere, save in Wellington. Here we have now a full supply of houses, but not an over-supply. Building will go on as long as builders ' can sell the houses wen. The instances of failure to pay interest that come under my nolace are due to misfortune, and these do not exceed the normal. The position locaily is nothing like what it is in Auckland, where in one issue of a newspaper nineteen mortgagees' sales were advertised. Occasional mortgagees' sales are advertised locallv, but that has been the case for years." Another agent took a more decided view of the position. "Building has met the existing requirements,'' he said, ''both on houses, offices, shops, and warehouses, if it has not exceeded them. Shops in good positions, and well-built houses of from five to seven rooms find ready tenants at reasonable rentals. Larger houses have to reduce their rents before they are taken. The demand for buildings that can be converted into flats is small. Government money has given a fillip to building at the expense of the private mortgagee. The Government money is all right for the small man building for himself."

WHERE THE COUNCIL GAINS Another angle of the housing question was touched upon by an agent, who seemed to think that the City Council was winning all along the line in regard to suburban building and subdivisions. When a block was subdivided the city acquired the reading without cost, and got enhanced rates on the subdivided sections, probably three times the sum in rates. Tram passengers were obtained as the result of the sub-divisions, and yet the City Council was always complaining of the loss <m the trams. Surely, he maintained, a small loss on the trams in suburbs such as Karori and Miram'ar was more than made up in the increased rates from the subdivided properties. The tramway concession tickets were thus compensated for. There was no doubt that the 3d concession had done much to encourage building in the suburbs, giving people healthier and cheaper building sites than they could have obtained nearer the city, and if ever these concessions were removed, land in the suburbs must depreciate to an extent that in bis opinion would lose the city more in rates than it would gain by charging full fares. Probably each land agent attracts his own class'of client, which may account for the difference in the experience of one agent in a fairly extensive way of business from thuse quoted above. Upon his books, he said, there were quite a number of properties of people who had been unable to keep up interest payments on Government money, some of the arrears running into twelve months. Unemployment might have something to do with this, he thought, but he also expressed the opinion that the ability of the person securing the loan to continue payments was not perhaps.tested as well as it might be. The small deposit bad become general only since, the readily obtainable Government money.