A SLUMP IN FLATS.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 December 1922, Page 6

A SLUMP IN FLATS.

RENTALS GETTING LOWER. POSITION IN SYDNEY. The market for flats is crashing, says a Sydney paper. Many hundreds of flats in the Metropolis are empty, and there is practically no inquiry for them. As a result, rentals are being reduced. Meanwhile the shop boom is at its height. If it goes higher the bubble may burst. Practically without exception, the big real estate agents of the city, who deal in flats, admitted the seriousness of the position. Most of the agents at Darlinghurst, the centre of flat life in the Metropolis, also sounded a dull note, although they averred that the position was not causing them anxiety.

Tn Darlinghurst and its immediate vicinity there are hundreds of empty flats—nearly all furnished—and unless something extraordinary happens many are likely to remain tenantless. At the moment there is the usual stillness in the market before the Christmas demand sets in, but there is no disguising the fact, that that demand is broken before it starts. Residential chambers are also a drug on the market.

Owing to the house shortage of the last few years people have been forced either to share houses with relations or friends or to rent flats. That is where the speculator reaped a golden harvest The builder erected immense or small blocks of flats as his finances permitted. He did something to remedy the house shortage. But a. certain class of business men sought a quicker turnover. They bought houses, old and new, and converted them into flats. After tenants had been secured they sold the premises at enormous profits.

The same class of speculator did a thriving trade by renting unfurnished flats at, say, £2 10s or £3 3s a week, putting £'2so to £4OO worth of furniture into them, and re-letting at £5 5s to £6 6s. As an agent stated, the people were suffering from “ a form of madness which is now reflected in the market for shops.” No sooner was a flat vacant than it was re-let. Agents could not meet the demand. When the boom was at its height no one was quicker than the speculator to realise that a day of reckoning would come. He could feel the pulse of the market, and when it began to weaken he sold his interests. That is why many flat purchasers will now be losers.

The collapse of the market is ascribed to the growing number of flats and tq the people’s sickness of flat life. “Every second building in Darlinghurst,” said a pioperty man, “has been knocked into a flat or a residential, and the people are sick of the smell of sausages at every door.”

People are also beginning to realise that they are often paying twice as much for a cramped flat as they would for a nice cottage.