LAND VALUES

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 32300, 16 August 1943, Page 5

LAND VALUES

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —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 melting pot since last war. All that is built on values derived from animal husbandry appears to be greatly increased in prices. 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 with—“l know a farm . . ” facts are mislaid. The post-war political opposition made 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 were looking into every cranny for the cause of the slump—which, be it remembered, was at first to be cured by more production and then by less production quotas—rural land values had their place in the long line of exhibits.

Despite vast increases in animal population Government capital valuations of counties in 1921 and 1942 were the same, each was £322 millions; valuations of boroughs rose from £179 millions in 1921 to £3Bl millions in 1940. As to values in recent years, in June “Abstracts of Statistics” will be found particulars of land transfers for five months in years 1939-1943, and in September, 1936 there are similar particulars for five months of* the years 1935 and 1936. There were 5397 town and suburban transfers, 1935, averaging £423 consideration; 6897 in 1936, averaging £446; 9623'in 1939, averaging £589, and 10,295 iii 1943, averaging £B23—each in a five- ; months period; roughly double as j many at double the consideration per | transaction in 1943, compared with 1 1935. In 1935 there were 2271 rural!

land transfers, averaging £1334 each; in 1936, 2622, averaging £1354; in 1939, 1974, averaging £1461,’ and in 1943, 1936, averaging £1561. About 14% fewer transactions in rural land took place in 5 months in 1943 than in five months in 1935. Value per transaction rose 17% over the eightyear period. There were fewer transactions in rural land in 1943 than is a similar period (January to May) i* 1939, though there was 7% more eofisideration on the average. Land improvements justify higher prices more particularly when 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 bought much more than the pound in 1943. — I am, etc., A. E. ROBINSON, Provincial Secretary, Auckland Farmers’-Unimu August 12, 1943.