HOUSES IN DEMAND

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 126, 30 May 1942, Page 5

HOUSES IN DEMAND

TARANAKI SHORTAGE

FUNDS FOR INVESTMENT

(0.C.) NEW PLYMOUTH, this day,

So acute is the housing problem at New Plymouth that as many as 60 persons have applied to rent one house. The demand, according to a land agent, is increasing, and as soon as a house becomes vacant news spreads like wildfire to prospective tenants.

Although the experience of a newcomer to the town, who was offered the choice of three homes to rent, led him to believe the housing problem at New Plymouth was much less acute than in other towns, he was quickly disillusioned by the fate of a friend. On making inquiries about renting a certain house, the friend found his name was 56th on the list of applicants.

Besides the experience of the land agent who had 60 applications for a centrally situated house, another said that 46 tenants applied for a small house at fl 5/ a week and 16 for one at £2 2/ a week.

State houses, too, are at a premium. If one is vacated, there is such a long waiting list that it is immediately reoccupied.

The calling up of married men for service had not eased the position, a New Plymouth housing agent said. Many women who might prefer to set up house in districts where their husbands were stationed were realising the futility of attempting to rent houses, particularly in the main centres, and were resigning themselves to remaining in their present homes.

The continued shortage of dwellings to let, combined with an abundance of funds for investment, had produced an increased buoyancy in the property market, said a real estate agent. Preferences for modern houses in good localities were marked, and although new buildings at high prices sold rapidly, there was little sale for old dwellings. Prices which 12 months ago would have been regarded as too high were now paid unhesitatingly, and this the agent attributed to the ever increasing demand for houses, and the shortage that had become more pronounced since the reduction in building permits.