HOME OWNERSHIP FOR ALL.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18229, 13 November 1924, Page 8

HOME OWNERSHIP FOR ALL.

While it is possible for Australians, with their uniquely free land laws, and easy method of transferring tit es under the Torrens system, to claim great advantages over people in other countries, where land laws are ancien nnd land dealing intricate, it is that the people here are not maKing full use of their opportunities become property owners (says tn "Australian Home Builder )._ _ Statistics show that two-thirds o the Victorian home dwellers are honve owners, as against ono-thirdf America, and a less proportion in Great Britain. This shows that individually Australians axe/ seizing avidly upon the easy means offered • to them to become property owners, but as a community the people of "Victoria ana all the other States in greater degree, have failed to make a scientific study of the principles underlying property | ownership, and that therefore their practice is faulty. The error lies m the very beginnings of _ our timepurchase system of providing freehold homes for the peonle under the Savings Bank Credit Foncier and housing schemes. . ~ , Tlio basis of these schemes is that the applicant for a home to be biult must first own a block of land, and must go into the open market to purchase it from speculators. The profits gathered by speculators in these sales retard the home builder at the outset in his endeavour to get settled in a home. The bank authorities, in considering a building loan, must perforce examine and place a value on the applicant's block of land. The valuation milst either be the intrinsic worth of the block, having in view'its accessibility, or such worth, plus the added selling value accrued to the site by the profits already added to it by the operations of speculators. If the intrinsic value of the site is taken, then the bank cannot lend on it under mortgage the. full amount required by the applicant for the construction of his house. It the speculative value is accepted^(which is the rule), then the cost of house .and building toother' are much above the real intrinsic value of the completed property, and consequently the bank is party to the system of land speculation that makes the first cost of home acquisition so high that many people cannot meet it, and must remain in the tenant class. These reflections lead, of course, to the proposition that the bank should acquire large - areas of land before it has acquired' a speculative value as residential sites, and- sell both land and houses at intrinsic value to its customers. . •

Neither the Credit- Foncier nor the Housing Act giye the. bank power to do this, and it is in this respect that the community is failing' to take'full advantage of its unique arid golden opportunity to make home ownership available to every'citizen. The theory of home' ownership by everybody is now being much discussed in America, where, without the easy system of land purchase available to Australians under the Torrens system, a method of selling houses without calling for a heavy primary deposit from the purchaser, is now being worked out. on entirely scientific lines. This includes the purchase of land , and the building of a house for each client, with or without calling for _any substantial deposit, and with periodic payments spread"to meet the client's income. ' . . .