New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-04-07
PROPERTY, RENTS, AND PRICES.

The main causes for the decrease of house
rents and store rents at the present letting
season are, () the large decrease in the price
of house building materials; (2) tho fall in the
cost Of labor employed in house building !;
CD the great increase in the value of currency
since the time when its depreciation was put
forward as the reason for doubling and treb-
ling the rent rates; (D the general decline in
the wages of all classes of workingmen, and
in the price of most of the means and neces-
sares of life; 90 the decrease of profits in
business and trade, and the general dimlnutOn
of incomes; (6) the great amount of house
building carried on in the city and suburbs
during the last three years, which has given
some relief from our former overcrOwded con-
ditiOn ca the extensive migration OF recent
times from the city itself to places adjacent,
which has also given relief to the city; (S) the
very large number of houses and stores
throughout the city that are now to let, and
that cannot be rented OH the terms demanded
by landlords.
The owners of houses and real estate here
have for some years past enjoyed very proht-
able and satisfactory returns from their invest
ments 1t is doubtless unpleasant to them to
see any cessation in the yearly increase of the
value of their property and the annual advance
of their rents; and it is doubtless even more
unpleasant for them to see the value of prop
erty at a stands still, and the rate of rents
tending downward But, at the same time,
they ought not to remain unconscious OF the
great evils this city has suffered from the ex-
orbitant rents people have been compelled to
pay for some years past-rents which are ex-
Orbitant not only as compared with former
times but as compared with those paid in any
other great city of America or Europe. The
poorer classes have been crowded into foul
and pestilence- breeding terements. Tens of
thousands of our most desirable citizens, active
and enterprising men of families belonging to
the middle classes, have been forced to leave
New York and to take up their residence in
the adjacent towns of New Jersey, Connecticut
and Long Island. Not few kinds of business
heretofore carried on here have been altogether
driven from the city-the persons engaged in
them being unable to command such profits as
would meet the exactions for rent Branches
of manufacturing industry, giving employment
to large numbers of people, have in like man
ner been compelled to leave New York for
more favorable localities.
In such ways as these the prosperity of the
city has been greatly retarded, even though it
has increased in business and population. It's
growth has not been of that sound, whole
some, vigorous, and vitalzed kind most favor
able to enduring prosperity and the welfare of
the great mass of tho community. 1t is our
opinion that real estate owners themselves
would be as much benefited as any other class
by such an adjustment of property values and
rent rates as would assist the other influences
now cooperating to give stability to business.
assurance to industry, and regulation to gen.
eral prices.