The Money Market

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 124, 30 March 1886, Page 3

The Money Market

Messrs Charles Pownall and Co., mortgage agents, Wellington, report: —The' money market has remained quiescent during the last month, mortgage operations being limited to moderate amounts, for which the supply of capital for investment was ample. The rate of interest remains unchanged at 6£ to 7£ per cent, for large or small sums. Two of the largest Assurance Companies in the Home Country are now represented in Sydney with, it is reported, one million of money for investment on landed security. We fear, however, the terms offered, viz., from 2-sths to £of valuation, will be found too restrictive Very few of our runholders can afford to lock up their estates for a term of years for this minimum advance on their true value, even at the moderate rate proposed — 5$ per cent., free of property tax, payable in London. Such an arrangement can only militate prejudicially both to mortgagees and mortgagors, by interfering with the further outlay and improvements still so much required upon station properties to make them remunerative. The fall in | wool can alone be met by economising its growth, and it is only when these properties are substantially sub-divided and improved that so much shepherding and outgoing expenses can be saved as to leave a fair margin of profit upon present quotations. If English capital, therefore, is to find investment in this country— and it will, from its superfluity, surely do so, as the very best s uirue of it — the limitations now demanded must disappear, and every encomagement offered, binding when necessary, to carry out and complete all requisite improvements. Wool, from its overgrowth, until it finds a near outlet in China and Africa, is not likely to increase much in value ; but with our frozen meat trade now fully established as the A I brand, there is no palpable reason ■why station properties, worked with proper economy, should not yield very satisfactory returns for the capital invested in them. — March 26th, 1886.