HOUSE PROPERTIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23221, 19 June 1937, Page 14

HOUSE PROPERTIES

PRIVATE INVESTORS A RETURN OF ACTIVITY (Special to Daily Times) WELLINGTON, June 18. The statement that a feeling of relief had come over private investors in house properties when the Government announced the rental to be charged for new State houses was made to-day by Mr Arthur Seed, secretary of the Dominion Federated Sawmillers’ Association. He said that when the Government’s housing plans were first put before the public, home-building and investment in houses by private persons showed an immediate falling off. Activity was beginning to become apparent again now that the Government had made known the rents its prospective tenants would be required to pay. Soon after the inception of the scheme, Mr Seed said, there had been a marked decline in the demand for timber on the part of private builders. This lull was a direct reflection of the uncertainty and hesitation caused in the minds of the usual investors in house property. They had adopted a policy of holding off to see what effect the Government’s building plans would have on property values. The general impression seemed to be that State houses were to be made available to tenants at some ridiculously low and uneconomic rental. Since the announcement of the rentals by the Acting Prime Minister (Mr P. Fraser) the average investor in house properly appeared to have heaved a sigh of relief, and there were now signs of private building beginning to awaken from its temporary somnolence.

A decline in timber orders set in about last November, but there was evidence that private building was now being started again. As soon as Mr Fraser made his pronouncement concerning rentals for Government houses the returns of the output of sawmills began to show an increase. There was no doubt that the housing situation in most centres was still exceedingly acute. A huge deficiency, estimated at 20,000 homes, resulted from the cessation of activity in the building industry during the slump period, and it was fairly safe to say that even with the house-building plans announced by the Government any relief from this source would merely touch the fringe of. the housing problem.