KEEN DEMAND FOR SHARES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 485, 15 October 1928, Page 12

KEEN DEMAND FOR SHARES

NORTHERN BUILDING SOCIETY MEMBERSHIP OF 10,000 ' By Noon Call. With feelings of justifiable satisfaction the directors of the Northern Co-op. Terminating Building i Society should place their report before the fifth annual meeting of shareholders on Thursday evening next. The report discloses a continuance of the vigorous and healthy growth shown by the society since its inception. With 17 groups in operation, the society has been able to keep ex* 1 penses at a very satisfactory level and the annual levy on members has not been changed from the fixed rate of Is 9d a share decided on at the start. To-day, it has a following of over 10,000 members, and further groups [ ! are to be made available in the near | future. i When it is considered that the ! society has grown up during a time when money was supposedly tight and financial conditions not the best, its rapid, yet healthy growth is little short of remarkable, and a certain testimony to the thrift of a wide circle of the Auckland public. The society closed its first year showing an income of £39,478; an increase to £55,143 was shown at the end of the following year; by 1926 the figures had grown to £72,532; by 1927 to £88,092; the season just ended shows the rato of expansion well maintained with the year’s figures making a grand total of £108,790. Advances have grown from £28,600 at the end of 1924 to £92,372 at the end of 1928, the accumulated total over the period being £320,015. Mortgages for 1924 stood at £35,012; for 1928 the figures were £113,844. bringing the accumulated total up to £396,460 and showing a very satisfactory margin between advances and security. In this, as the current mortgages are always being reduced by repayments, the risk on the society’s securities falls at a corresponding rate. In any case loans are only made after a most careful investigation and the risk at the outset is reduced to a minimum. A perusal of accounts shows a correspondingly healthy increase of annual profits, rising from £6,605 in 1924, to £20,815 in 1928, the accumulated total over the period amounting to £75,963. For the thrifty home-builder there is nothing to equal the proposition offered by a society such as the Northern. It gives him the chance of acquiring a home upon terms which no other form of organisation could put forward. Spread over the period of the loan, the total cost of the home to the buyer under building society methods works out at less than the average aggregate rental payment over the same period. For instance, a rental of 30s a w*eek (a very lo# figure at the present time) would amount to £936 paid to the landlord at the end of 12 years; by that time the building society owner would have paid off his £BOO loan and the house would be his own. Tho support accorded the Northern Building Society has been justified by the results, which have provided convincing proof of the soundness of the management, and should give increased confidence to the home-seeker looking to building societies for assistance.