DOMINION VALUES.

Hokitika Guardian, 31 March 1922, Page 3

DOMINION VALUES.

MR FLANAGAN’S VIEWS

TOWN and country property. AUCKLAND, March 26. It may he news to many a man that rural lands in some districts were valued on a basis of Is 4d per pound for butter-fat by tlhe Valuation Department during the war boom in the prices of the Dominion’s primary products, yet this is the ease, as stated hv the Valuer-General, Air, F. VV.

Flanagan, who is at present in Auckland. Mr Flanagan mentioned several reasons why these prosperous country districts were valued on what was practically a 1914 basis as regards cost and price of commodities at a time when butter-fat had reached' the liotherto unknown figure of 2s 6d Per pound,, the principal one being that lie considered that buyers’ cash would be limited at the end of hostilities. He had considered, he said, that although the necessity for these products would not diminish, the demand would be limited only by the lack of ready cash in the pockets of the British public. and this in itself would cause prices to recede Therefore the valuations of farm lands carried out in 1919 20 upon this and similar basis were logically reasonable to-day. Thus an extensive inconvenience that would have been caused by the necessity of revaluation was avoided. VALUATIONS NOT (DIMINISHED. The Valuer-General did not admit that the valuations of these farm lands had diminished since the last valuation, though he freely agreed that the properties in many instances, weie unsaleable. This was caused in great measure by the tightness of money, for the lands, he agreed were often unsaleable at any reasonable price, hut that, in his opinion, did not affect the justice of the valuation figures Many of the lands had been sold, be explained, at prices that represented as much as 100 per cent., and even in some instances 470 per ce'd., advance on the Government valuation, but these transactions were the result of the land' speculation at boomtimes. In some district's the natural progress called for revaluation eveiy four years, some did not require to he re-vaiiic.l for six years, or even eight; and in one ease he mentioned a Taranaki block, had not been i revalued for seven years, mainly because the land, when opened up. did not “strip” so well as was anticipated.

THE (ITY Y A EVES. Mr Flanagan advanced n ns a peculiar economic fail that in a great many installers town values increased while nival values were decreasing. 11ns led to the subject of oily valrfrs, and the “Star” man learned that in Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland —in fact, all the populous centres—this was a fact in New Zealand. Town values were on the upgrade, according; as the cities increased, while rural values were going hack from the boom assessments of both buyers and sellers. It was almost impossible, lie declared, to assess values ou a rising market, and this was the position rewarding the rural lands to-day, when the market was slowly hut steadily rising for all primary products except beef. But this difficulty was not applicable to the city. A tightness in the money market did not affect values of real estate nearly so greatly as was generally supposed. ELSE AND FALL IN VALUES. In the cities, declared Mr Flanagan, very small tilings affected valuation figures. For instance, a new building might change a neighbourhood from one looked down upon to a popular place; a slum area, with its decreasing value of properties, might develop; and sometimes development and extension of a centre would change the locality of its business or its residential heart. A great many factors controlled this rise or fall in values, and it was scarcely logical to take the objections of, sav, ten per cent of property owners as a gauge of the work of the department. This ten per cent would cover the whole of the objections, a large number of which were purely technical ones, and the majority neve: reached the Assessment Court. An ample period was given after the lodgment of an objection for the owner to meet the department and hear its explanations, and in the great majority of instances this conference resulted m the matter being arranged in a manner satisfactory to all. 01 eouise, tlieie : were some instances when owners were ' not convinced, ana these, in justice to ' the others, were taken to the court. Often a man would object on t>ne : i rounds that a neighbour had a lower valuation than lie, but usually there ' was at least one particular reason tor this difference. lwf _