The Waikato Times WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 1936. HOUSING AND RENTS

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19884, 13 May 1936, Page 6

The Waikato Times WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 1936. HOUSING AND RENTS

The Prime Minister has stated that the Government will take active measures to deal with the shortage of houses and also prevent rents rising: unduly. The two things are phases of the one problem. As new houses are erected and occupied there will be more available for rental and that will have its effect on the charges made to tenants. Unfortunately Mr Savage has not, expressed any yiews regardinq the causes of the housing shortage, and possibly if he were to deal with causes he would quickly be able to repot‘t ‘an improvement in the position. Prior to the depression the building of houses for rental purposes was an attractive form of investment, but when economic conditions became difiicult the owners of these properties were compelled to make so many sacrifices, given so little latitude in dealing with tenants who were unsatisfactory, that build—ing for letting practically ceased. That is one of the chief causes of the existing shortage.

The intention of the Government to spend £1?,000,000 on vast housing plans will necessitate care, for the experience of the PRSt few years has shown that money may easily be lost. There are, how—ever, ways of approaching the problem that should be examined. Many people have a section of land, or a sum of money sewed, With the intention of erecting their own homes as soon as ppsmble. The reduction of the amounts now available on mortgage has created a gap which these people are not able to bridge, yet, the money they have, or the sum already expended in buying a section, Vyonld give them an equity that would go a long way to ensure their interest in the maintenance and improvement of the property. If the Government could devise a method of affording these people a larger measure of nseistuncc something practical would have been done to banish the housing shortage.

There are. other plans that are worthy of consideration. Some years ago laws were passed encouraging group settlement. If, say, four buyers agreed to take divisions of a farm and the owner were willing to sell the Government would finance the transaction along the lines of the land settlement schemes. Would it not be possible to apply something of the same sort of thing to housing”! The State Cannot. provide all that is remuired, and it should seek to interest investors in this form of security. If two men agreed, one to build a house of a certain size and the other to rent it at a given figure for a term of. years, then a State advance to the owner would be well covered. The men may be relatives or close friends and there might even be a group of them. Probably a man with money to invest would hesitate before building places in the hope of securing satisfactory tenants, but he would be willing to invest in that way if he were building for some one he knew and could trust.

The shortage of suitable houses for letting can be attributed largely to the drastic manner in which owners were treated during the depression, but if the Government could do something to make that form of investment again attractive—perhaps along the lines suggested—private enterprise could be relied upon to take the opportunity, and the need for the investment of large sums of public money would not arise. The policy of the Government will, of eourse, be made clear when it brings down the Bill relating to rents. It may be anxious to prevent any owner taking to himself all, or the greater part, of the proposed increases in wages, but it must, at the same time, protect the owner who may only have raised rents to ensure a reasonable return on the money invested. It is a difficult problem, but if by uniting with private enterprise and adopting a. building programme of reasonable dimensions, the Government can reduce the actual shortage of houses it will, at the same'time, have done something to stabilise rents at reasonable levels.