MANY HOUSES TO LET.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19143, 8 October 1925, Page 12

MANY HOUSES TO LET.

. A SIGN OF THE TIMES. SHORTAGE APPARENTLY OVER. THE ESTATE iCIAFiiCET QUIET. Auckland does not appear to he suffering from a house famine at present. Real estate business, for various reasons, is decidedSv slack, but such things as the shipping strike have not affected building, which is going on vigorously, as the local bodies' returns clearly show. Land agents have many more houses on their books than they can sell and certain classes of dwellings are by no means easy even to let. Everything seems to show that, rapidly as Auckland's population has grown, private enterprise in building has almost, if not quite, caught up with if. Property sales were fairly brisk from last Easter until tho arrival of the American Fleet. Then there was a lull of about three weeks, and the shipping strike occurred. Just now everybody seems a little uncertain and as a result the house market is "simply rotten," as one land agent put it to a reporter yesterday. The general Is-'ief is that, supposing the strike ends soon, the market will stay quiet until after the general election. It should not be inferred that there is anything like a slump. The land agents are emphatic about that. Property values are fully maintained, and owners are prepared to wait for their price. This applies to houses of the semi-bungalow type, which are still in favour with buyers, who hold that the building of fifteen or twenty years ago was better done than that of to-day. Such houses are adaptable to many of the requirements of modern taste. One effect of the tightness is that many owners are letting houses until such time as they can find buyers. Convenient dwellings of about five rooms are readily let if tho rent is reasonable, but agents say that it is hard to obtain more than £2 a week. That seems to be the limit most- people m,;ke for themselves. Unduly largo houses or houses far from a tramline or bus service are inclined to "stick." One agent turned up his books and showed the reporter instances of houses which had been available since July and August. There is only a moderate demand for flats, and it is" evident that many people who lived in them a year or two ago were only waiting until they could remove into houses of their own. Propertyowners are loath to incur the expense of subdividing large houses while the demand for flats appears to be falling off. Altogether, things seem to be reverting to the pre-war standard of one house one family. It need" not be supposed that the letting of houses as a busines is coming back. The tendency is all tho other vvav, but in tho natural course of events, when there is no acute shortage, a certain number of dwellings come on to the letting market for a variety of reasons, and that is what is happening to-day. So long as there are desirable dwellings to let at moderate rentals a shortage cannot be said to exist.