THE LAND FEVER IN MELBOURNE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2447, 17 March 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE LAND FEVER IN MELBOURNE.

Tjjkrk has been a marvellous and almost bewildered expansion during the last few months in the value of city properties. Not even in Chicago, that civic mushroom of America, have the prices of land risen so fast, and risen so far, as in Melbourne. Land, that fifty years ago was pressed only by the foot of the savage, or by the foot of the kangaroo, is to-day bought and sold at prices which would literally cover the land with hank notes. In the leading streets land is as readily convertible into cash as a bank note, and fetches prices ranging from £1000 per foot upwards in very sharp 'crescendo.' It is a fact, wo believe, that the rate of £2,000 per foot has been actually offered for a site in the city—'and refused. The market rates of land in Melbourne are almost pqnal t«> those of London ; and yet Melbourne has only fifty years of history behind it, and it is the capital of a million people, while London has twenty centuries behind it, and is the capital, in a sense, of the world. The stories of wealth, not so much achieved as stumbled upon by purchasers of city frontages, is like a page from the " Arabian Nights," only it is as literal and solid as a column from a bank ledger. It is 011 rccoi'd. for example, that a given property was bought five years ago for £210 per foot; it was sold three years ago for £401 per foot; it was resold lately for £1,355 per foot. Another property, bought four months ago for £400 per foot, has risen through a procession of sales to £700 per foot, showing a profit of well nigh £40,000. For land bought three years ago at £240 per foot, £1000 per foot has been refused. One well-known block has been sold three times within a fortnight, and has risen from £050 to £875 per foot.—Telegraph.