REAL ESTATE MARKET

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12425, 20 April 1926, Page 3

REAL ESTATE MARKET

POSITION IN AUCKLAND LITTLE MORE LIFE APPARENT DROP IN RENTS (By Telegraph.—Special to “Timas.” AUCKLAND, April 19. A little more life is apparent in the Auckland property market after a period of dull business. The demand for house property is still below normal, and speculative builders are finding it difficult to quit their ready made 'homes, but in the last week or two there has been a brighter tone, not only for dwellings, but for farm land. These signs of a revival in property business have more or less synchronised with the ending of the financial year, and the land agents, to say nothing of lawyers, whose conveyancing has been limited, are hopeful that their business will be more steady and stable than it has been since the bgain began. NO LONGER A PROBLEM As tho result of the great amount o* building that has taken place in the past few years the housing question is no longer a problem except perhaps to the improvident and the unfortunate. Thanks to the Government lending and the opportunity for people of low incomes to buy on the table system from speculative builders, many workers have escaped from tile disadvantages of renting. There is not the former demand for flats in the outer suburbs. This is evidence that the suburban dweller is being better catered for with houses, and a phenofnenal number of large old-fash-ioned houses are on tho market. In regard to the modern type of houses the price standard is fixed more by the situation and environment than by building costs. Although building costs have dropped considerably since the peak period, the increase'in the value of the sections in the better residential areas has been sufficient to maintain the value. Some exceedingly high prices have been given recently’ for sections in good localities, and the probabilities are that costly houses will be built upon them. Where new bungalows are hanging fire is in the newer districts, or in the districts where a high residential standard is not yet fixed. Many of the unsold new houses are standing idle, the owners being too afraid of the danger of getting bad tenants to let them, while numbers of good houses are leased privately and satisfactorily. There is a type of tenant, bad payers and destroyers of propelt>, wht. has completed what legal restrictions began —the extinction of the professional landlord. One prominent firm of land agents has not a single client who has built houses to lease. Thus the majority of houses to let are of an inferior class. The experience of this authority is that house rents are falling. Where a weekly rent of £3 and £3 10s could be obtained for a good family house a year ago, the price is asked in vain to-day. Cheaper houses are available, and the public is now more inclined to count the shillings than in the recent past.