LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3052, 13 April 1917, Page 8

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

RENTS % AND TENANTS

Sir, I read with interest the article which was pjiblished in your paper this morning on the scarcity and the termed high rents in "Wellington. I write as one having had a considerable number of houses in Wellington, and as one who has learned by hard experience) all. tho difficulties that arise 'between landlord and 4enaut. My experience as a, landlord is that building houses to let is about the poorest and , most worrying investment, even at the present rents, that one can put their money into. You will want to know why. Well I will tell you. It is because of the most unsatisfactory class of people who are always on the market looking for houses—people who have not the slightest respect,or regard for other people's property, andivho wilfully or .negligently destroy every place or house they get into. Some years ago I came into Wellington with a considerable amount of cash, and -thought from the rents then obtainable that building a number of houses to let would provide a fair investment, and as I had no income other than what 1 would make out of the said money, I bought a large block of land, borrowed a lot of money, and built | pver twenty houses. As they were being completed, I let them at rents that should have given me a fair arid.reasonable return. We]l, sir, at the iend of three years 'I had had so-many losses in rents, and my houses were so badly damaged, that I determined to quit tho •lot for the best obtainable price, .and build no more houses to let. I sold every one in a short time. It would take columns to detail all the'trouble and misery I experienced with tenanta. I still have a few vacant sections in; Wellington that I feel, rather than build houses oii to let, I would almost give them away to anyone who-would! be fool enough to build houses to let. I would be willing to build for 'sale,; not to let, and I have been holding the sections, for 15 years, and would! gladly sell at the price I paid for them 15 years ago. —I am, etc., OLD LANDLORD.