REAL ESTATE.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15185, 10 March 1923, Page 3

REAL ESTATE.

FORTUNES MADE BY ACCIDENT. Every now and then poo- deluded souls wander into the police station and declare themselves lords of Balmain, states a writer in the Sydney Sun. They offer large sliees of then' estate lo Die constable, merely for the lending of his ear, and seek the, good oflic.es of the examining doctor by the Sift of a few acres of water frontage. They end their days in the detention house. Vet less than 150 years ago anyone could have said he owned Balmain and not have been considered mad. Probably his friends would have wondered why he had not bought a bottle of rum instead, but they would have sad nothing about it. In 1780 the whole lot was given to Dr. William Balmain as a reward for medical services. Perhaps he thought the gift rather a joke. Anyhow, the value he put upon it was to sell it to John Gilchrist for 10s. Today the improved capital value of the municipality is about £5,000,000. It seems a lot of money to be won for 6d less than the price of a bdttle of whisky. But one need not go back to the early pages of Sydney's history to discover the romantic tales of its real estate. Many of them arc stories of yesterday, and have not yet been written. They do not tell of millions, but they are sufficient. There is, for instance, the case of a man who, a few years ago, was a window dresser at one of Sydney's big emporiums. He got into his head the idea that an area of land which was to be sold at Marouba was worth more than its owners were asking. They wanted about £7OO, but at the moment he could spare little rcuire than 700 pence. Someone suggested that he should mention his idea to his employers. He did. They formed a small syndicate .bought the land, and about three years later resold it for £17,000. His share of the treasure helped to make him independent of window-dressing. A lady made an interesting addition to the history of real estate the other day. She called at an agent's office and presented the sales manager with a box of cigars. "You have put me on to a good thing, and deserve a good smoke." was the beginning of her explanation. The rest of it consisted m exhibiting a cheque from the Bankstown Council for £6OO. She had been paid that for a block of land which she bought three and a half years ago for £l5O, and which had not bothered her since.

As a woman she Is not a lone hand in the real estate world. Women are very keen land buyers and speculators. There is a wardress at Long Bay who is rarely absent from any big land sales around Sydney, and a girl employed at one of the city draper's shops gets notice of forthcqjpj ing sales and ferrets out the best blocks in time to buy them when the sales take place. Although she insists on remaining unknown to the public, she is prouu of the fact that she lias made some profitable deals, and that she holds a few titles which she regards as excellent promissory notes on the future.

"Golden Corners." In the city proper io-day up to £ISOO a foot is being paid for certain sites. People call them the "golden corners." They applied the same name 100 years ago to a piece of land with a frontage of 144 ft to George Street and I (Tift to King Street, which was bought by a Mr Moore for £63. The same site is now worth well over £200,000. A golden block of to-day is that of the General Post Office. Governor Macquarie bought the site for a hogshead of brandy and either £3O or £4O! The wavering hand of the clerk who prepared the deed has left us uncertain of the figure, but no one would be likely to argue about the £2O difference to-day.

These golden corners and "the man who was laughed at" for his purchases are recorded on every milestone in the progress of Sydney's land values. If Hie site of the Commonwealth Bank in .Martin Place were sold to-morrow the bidding, would probably start at £I2OO a foot, and race on excitedly to a new record. Yet, when the Federal authorities bought it for the bank they paid £9OO a foot for it—and that is very recent history. When it was sold 71 years before it fetched £3O. Wtiat will it be worth 71 years hence? One hundred years ago all the allotments on the east side of Pitt Street, from the corner of Bathurst Street to Liverpool Street, were sold for £1 or 30s a foot. Now people pay as much as £lu a week for the use of a counter in P<Tl Street.

The man who was laughed at appeared at Bondi about ten years ago. He paid £25 for a corner block—and his friends at once lost their good opinion of his business sense. It is now worth probably £l5O a foot. About four years ago some acre blocks were sold at Woy Woy for from £35 to £SO. Within 15 months those buyers who re-sold got as much as £7OO a block. There have been thousands of cases of men who fluked small or large fortunes by buying better than they knew, and there is at least one authentic case of a man who made the proverbial pot of money through sheer boredom. That was the late Mr G. B. Edwards. He was spending a day ,il Collaroy in 1908, when the district was not so attractive as it is now. By the afternoon lie was rather tired of the day's outing, and, meeting Sir Arthur Rickard, jumped at the invitation to go along to a land sale. The property under the hammer was some road frontages now occupied by shops. They attracted little bidding, and fetched only from 16s to £1 a foot. Mr Edwards bought several lots at thai price. They are now valued at £2O • i foot. The Unearned Increment. The advent of Hie tram or train has 1 an interesting effect on the barometer j of land values. Narrabcen provides j ■ inly one of many instances. In 1900 j beach frontages were sold there fur! lOs a foot, which have increased their | price twenty-fold. Blocks with a 50- j foot frontage, away from the beach,! fetched r.> each 17 years a>ro. Three years later I hey were re-sold at £l5O each, and to-day their price is double Dial. Another inslan f values doubling up is provided by a site in | Koscoe Street, Bondi. Originally the land was sold for £2 a fool. The huM/T re-sold for £•'!. •nut I he last purchase was al £6O a foot. All this occurred within ten years. Buying Suburban Lands. Anions the suburb.-, with a fascinating land history i> Watson's Hay. It! uivos !li" tii'sl instance in New South Wah'S of a loss on a land deal. Originally a grant lo Edward Laing, 200 J ~-res at Watson's Bay were sold by: •.ji n |o Tl ias Eaycock for t'f.n. !»or:rj l.a\ 'k lost £lO on the deal, forj when he resold to Edward Thomas j i».-ii ||,< only got £SO for Hi' 1 I'd. Eilh<T| Dell was mor<' businesslike or valin >' lusi' a Utile, fur lII.' same \|ear Hell -,,!d nut io Captain Brampton for £7l.i In is;, i -52 years after lie tiri-l sab' I . Hi,, hnifl was .-old I'.-r £6OOO, and tin ii snbdivis "ii- began, and 'th ■ do- ; ,fcccndat)ls of poor Thomas La}cock

must wonder why on earth he didn't keep the land and hand it down to his children instead of losing £lO by selling it. It is dangerous for some men to go to auction sales. A man who now has a home in one of Sydney's most attractive suburbs provides one of the most interesting cases of those optimistic souls who buy "on the blind." For £65 he bought leagues from the tram and apparently—as his wife discovered —occupied solely bV soldier ants. It was one thing to buy the land and another to find it. He wasted one Saturday afternoon on the search, and then offered a local_ man a sufficient bribe for him to disclose its hiding place. Once on the land he discovered a party of men seeking the treasures they had bought a few days before. It was an exciting hunt while it lasted, but eventually everybody got sorted out and got busy with an axe, all leaving their marks for future identification. That little bit of bush is to-day the centre of a thriving suburb. The land is valued at £0 15s a foot, and beds of salvia have replaced the soldier ants.