FINDING ITS LEVEL.

Otago Witness, Issue 1934, 19 March 1891, Page 6

FINDING ITS LEVEL.

Depreciation in Values op Landed Peoperty in England, Scotland, and Wales. In submitting bo me tables of transactions in land properties in England, Scotland, and Wales during the past three years, showing the somewhat extraordinary fall in values of this class of property, The Field (London) says that while " tho position of a country gentleman still carries with it all that is pleasant est and most characteristic of English social life, aud those who have it cling to it affft precious property, holding it a sacred duty to retain the association of the family name with the family acrea," still long lists of o'd estates which have changed owners are continually being added to at greatly reduced values, for " there are always a number of landowners who must sell. Encumbrances are heavy, mortgagees are impatient, rents are falling, but houses and gardens do not grow smaller, or the cost of maintenance leas. Under thi« and similar pressure landowners have sold freely for the laet three years, from whio'i some land agents argue a retnming confidence in firms and mansions as investments. May it not bR that landowners are now content to accept prices at which they would ha^ce laughed a few y6ars ago? This idea is favoured by a careful study of comparative values. It is no sign of returning confidence in land that a man buys at a lower price to-day than he vainly offered yesterday. This is the nature of the most frecenf; sales of agricultural property." A

review of actual transactions shows that mineral, estates and properties towards whioh towna are; extending sell well and readily, but tbe merely ' ■agricultural and residential property "is more than ever a drug in the market, aud when it does change hands, does so because experience •has taught the owner that the nexc offer will be even more disastrous." Doubtless there are numerous colonists who have a knowledge of one or other of the properties mentioned in the tables given below, and to whom tbe evidences of the fall in values will be a matter of turprhe. The following are fairly repreaeuteuive instances of " reluctant sales," takeu from widely distant districts in England and Scotland : —

in addition to the above, the Field gives the following examples : — The owner of an estate in Oxfordshire, for which he gave £18,000, could not get a higher bid than £7000 ; a Staffordshire property, valued some years ago at £28,000, was withdrawn at £15,000; a Norfolk estate in good order has fallen irom £19,000 to £11,000 since 1879 ; and for a sma 1 resirlrntial place in the North Riding, for which £7400 *rap paid a few years ago, and £3500 offered quite lately, the highest bid the other day was £1300.' These reduced values often press more heavily on the mortgagees than on the landowner. A Staffordshire estate mortgaged for £14,000 is now let at £300 j and £19,000 is the prvacnt value of a Lincolnshire pmneriy w icb was valued for mortgage at £36,000 in 1870 The recent auction room failures to sell important estates are, however, insignificant (the Field say*) compared with the mammoth territories now being dangled before r.he eyes of would-be Scotch lairds. There has seldom been ?een such a cluster of magnificent Scotch domains in the market a(j one time. The most imposing are the following: —

When to these are added tbe 19.500 acrea of Skibo. in Sutherlandshir , offered f nr £125,000 ; the 20,000 acres of Dnnalistair, BUnnock, last sold for £153,000 ; the 25,000 acres oF Duvinieb, in Skye; Redoaatle and Aberardar.in Invernessshire ; Glenmuick, in Aberdeens-hire ; and many others, all with high reserves, it will be seen that the owners of Scotch estates at c slow to learn that tbe days of fancy prices for sporting properties is gone. Dunis, in Aberdeenshire, is the only one ot tha great cluster which baa been encpessfully exposed, and even that was with-

t^rawn in the auction room at £270,000, or !£30,000 less than the owuer paid for it 19 years ]ago. A number of instances in whioh satisfactory sales of estates were effected are cited in tbe Field, but the examples to the contrary far outnumber them, and the article concludes as follows : — " Making every allowance for the few successful sales, which in most cases may be directly attributable to exceptional circumstances, there is little in the figures to encourage the belief that confidence is being restored in agricultural estates as an investment Pricea and comparisons are all in favour of the theory that landowners are becoming reconciled to the new order of lacd values, and are ready, although not content, to pocket their loss."

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