THE HOUSE HUNGER.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 September 1919, Page 7

THE HOUSE HUNGER.

ONE CAUSE OF THE SHORTAGE. "Houge hunger is just as bad as ever," said a well-known Wellington land agent to a Dominion reporter. "Indeed as far as we are concerned it is getting worse. People are prepared to pay almost anything to get security of tenure in Wellington. This, I believe, will make the house boom as acute as it was in 1905, and must result in a big growth during the next year or two. "Several causes have boen put. forward for the phenomenal shortage of houses in Wellington, but it is not only in Wellington that this sort of thing exists, nor is it confined to New Zealand. It is world-wide- The principal cause, I suppose, is the demobilisation of millions of men who want to marry the girl they left behind them, or perhaps want a little better house—if he was a married man—than he had before the war. Then there are those people who have been put on their financial feet by the war—they all want nicer places to live in and won't be happy till they get them. "One of the causes, however, that lias not been touched upon, and is really militating against the building of houses, is the legislation which interferes with the rents. Everything in the world is governed by the law of supply and demand and if an investor who Went in for building finds that he cannot get a fair return on his property' he stops

building. That is what has happened in Wellington. There is no one building for the people. There are some building for themselveß, but few for other people. Why?' Because a return of 8 per cent, only j s allowed, and that is not sufficient. Based on the 1914 values it is a gross injustice to landlords, as since then the sovereign has shrunk from 20s to 12s or 13s in value, yet the houseowner is not permitted, in some cases, to get in rent to-day the equivalent (in value) of what he got in 1914. Everyone else is-, barring the house-owner. That is why the speculative builder is not operating to-day as he did in the big boom of fifteen years ago. Everyone knows that in Wellington the return should be at least 12 per cent, to cover rates, insurance, repairs, and depreciation, so that when a man is only offered 8 per cent, he draws in, and his action accentuates the shortage of houses quite naturally. I prophesy that as soon as the War Regulations are lifted in this regard, and rents are not under any restriction, that a building boom will commence—and that in the long run is the best panacea for high rents, after all."