LAND VALUES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 99, 17 August 1943, Page 5

LAND VALUES

RURAL AREAS VICTIMISED CORRESPONDENT'S OPINION In an interesting letter to the Editor, Mr A. E. Robinson Provincial Secretary to the Auckland 1 Provincial Farmers' Uinon, writes: History is repeating itself with regard to the country being made a whipping boy for the town, on account of the crime of rising values of land. Money values have been in the inciting pot since last Avar. All that is built on values derived from animal husbandry appears to be greatly increased in price. There was much talk of high farm prices after last war. When such a question as land values becomes a political shuttlecock, when all: arguments are from the particular to the general, when conversations commence Avith —"I knoAV a farm . . facts are mislaid. The post-Avar political opposition mode much of certain sales of estates at high prices. Later, high price of dairy produce led to speculation and many mortgages had to be liquidated subsequently. Later still, when politicians Averc looking, into every cranny for the cause of the slump—which, be it rememberedd, was at first to lie cured by more production and then by less production, quotas—• rural land A'alues had their place in the long line of exhibits. Despite vast increases in animal jiopulation Government capital \*aluations of counties in 1921 and 1942 were the same, each Avas £322 raillions; valuation of boroughs rose from £179 millions in 1921 to £321 millions in 1940. As to values in recent years, in June "Abstracts of Statistics" w.ill be found particulars of land transfers for live months in years 19391943, and in September 1936 "Abr stracts" there are similar particulars for five months of the years 1935 and 3936. There Avere 5397 Town and Suburban transfers, 1935, averaging £423 consideration; 6897 in 1936, averaging £446; 9623 in 1939, averaging £589; and 10,295 in 1943. averaging £823—each in a five months period; roughly double as many at. double the consideration per transaction irk 1943, compared with 1935. In 1935 there Avere 2271 rural land transfers, averaging £1334 each; in 193G, 2622, averaging £1354; in 1939,, 1794, averaging £1461 and in 194.3, 1936, averaging .£1561. About 14 per cent fewer transactions in rural land took place in five months in 1943 than in live months in 1935; value per transaction rose 17 per cent, over the eight-year period. There Avere fewer transactions in rural land in 1943 than in a lar period (January to May) in 1939, though there was 7 per cent more consideration on the a\ r erage. Land improvements justify higher priecs more particularly Avhen these are accompanied by higher carrying capacity, but there has also to be considered the drop in general purchasing power of money that has affected prices of almost all else but rural land. The pound of 1921 brought much more than £1 in 1943.