HOUSING PROBLEM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19373, 8 January 1925, Page 2

HOUSING PROBLEM.

SHORTAGE IN SYDNEY. RECORD BUILDING YEAR. (Fhom Odh Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, December 31. Both as regards the number of buildings erected and the total cost, building operations in the city and the suburbs during the year reached the highest level yet recorded. Now buildings totalled 12,180, at a cost of £14,346,071, which, compared with 1923, gives an increase of 1730 buildings, and. an increased outlay of £4,212,955. The latest figures eclipse the record for 1914, which previously stood as the record for the number of now buildings actually constructed. Comparing 1914 with 1924, there lias been an increase in the average expenditure per new buildings from £642 to £1177 or about 83 per cent. Despite the fact that it was a record year for building operations in the city and suburbs, it is estimated that to-day there is a shortage of houses in the State of between 20,000 and 30,000. One reason of the shortage, which has become apparent only within the last few years, is that private enterprise, being unable readily to secure the necessary ■ return upon its capital, has largely vacated the field of investment in rentable houses, of, say, four rooms. Although private enterprise has attacked the housing problem from a new angle, by building a considerable. number of new houses for sale on the instalment plan, and has thus prevented a complete breakdown in the supply of new building accommodation, yet the supply has been inadequately maintained. Although about 21,000 houses were erected in the metropolis in the three years 1921 to 1923, for example the estimated number required to meet. the growth of population was over' 28,000. Figures seem to point to the fact that housing accommodation in New South Wales is falling rapidly into arrears, and that congestion is increasing at a somewhat disquieting rate. While the cost of building remains at its present high level it is unlikely that the erection of houses for letting will revive, for the simple reason that, with the high earning power of money, the returns which can be obtained from building are scarcely as good as those from other investments.