Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-05-20
BUILDING HOUSES.
How to Supply the Demand for Tenemsnts
In ST. Paul.

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The following is the valuable paper pre-
sented by j. W. McClung at the citizens
meeting, held Tuesday night, to devise some
plan for providing tenements in st. Paul:
In order to meet the demand for homes in
st. Paul 1T is not necessary to form a stock
company, to build homes to rent or sell.
Neither does 1t seem practicable at present.
A quicker, and more practicable way, is to
leave it to individual enterprise, and to make
such change in our methods of real estate
sales, as will enable the poorest man, who
has steady work, and monthly income.
from wages or salary, to purchase lot of
his own, and pledge 1t as security for the
money to build house on it.
The difficulty in the way under our pres
ent system, is that lot owners will not give a
clear deed unless the full price OF the lot is
paid, and money loaners cannot advance the
money without a clear mortgage. The re-
suit IS scarcity of houses, an embargo on
real estate sales, and building improvements,
the loss of hundreds of citizens who arc
driven away, for want of Accommodations q
shifting, drifting and unstable population,
which we should anchor here. by giving
them homes of their own, and not allow
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ever hard times make il difficult for them
TO live and pay house rent.
The Loan and Building association have
succeeded in partially remedying this evil.
They have ali the money requisite to meet
all demands for building houses, fully $780,
:, 600 per month 10 loan. But hundreds who
would borrow and build cannot furnish lot
as security. If we can tunnel through this
| heraEnfNFQ nfal Ia bap md hra b
the embargo on real estate sales, all official
ties can be solved, and the interests of real
estate owners, as well as the great masses
who are willing but not able to build can be
promoted, and boom gwen to building as
sociatiOns which will give healthy impetus
to mechanical labor, real estate sales and the
traffic in all building materials, while the
city at large will feel the healthful glow
which will result from the new departure
and reform in land tenures. st. Paul is suf-
ferIng from the same evil that af1iots Ire
land-large landed estates-and we need
reform at home as well as sympathy beyond
the sea.
st. Paul owners of real estate have only to
apply the came reasoning to st. Paul they
have applied to Ireland to prove that re-
form here in our land tenures would result
in the prosperity of st. Paul, and, as re
suit, the prosperity of the land owners them
selves.
The only practical business of this meet
ing is to show how tais reform can be brought
about with profit to all parties. There are
skeletons of several plans. First plan-A,
the lot owner, gives B, the buyer clear
deed. b mortgages it to the Building asso-
citation, for say, $500 cash, insnriDg the house
he builds, worth $500 or more, and, assigning
the policy to the Building association, his
payments to the Building association are $40
per month, 100 months. 3 gives A second
mortgage to secure the price of the lot in
such payments monthly, or otherwise, as
may be agreed on. He also gives him per-
sonal security otherwise, by getting good
name on his paper, or giving chattel mort
cage On his furniture or other property, and
ani assignment of his life insurance until
four years of monthly payments are made in
the Building association.
BY this time his loon will be about ha.f
paid and the Building association will loan
lin enough more to pay up in full for the
lotend clear the real estate man from all
farther complications.
SECOND PLAN.
A, the lot owner, gives B, the buyer, a four
year lease with the privilege OF buying at the
end of four years, aud applying all his four
years. payments as purchase money on the
lot. 70 avoid putting flaw on his title OF
record, he makes this in the form of an agree
ment regularly witnessed but without &C
knowledging. Also to avoid the delay and
exoense If foreciosiug q mortgage or bond,
he leaves it as an escrow in the hands of a
third party, not to be delivered until the
four years. payments are made. He retains
the title in fec, but executes q mortgage to
the Buuilding association to secure
the payment for four years which
B has agreed to make, say $40 per
month for 5000 house, sc per month for a
$3.50 k0use, $12 per month for $l20
house, an pro rata per year or smaller sums.
At the end of four years if b has made all
his payments-say 6 per cent. interest on
the price of the lot and per cent. of the
principal, or whatever is agreed on. gives
him clear deed; he (B) gives mortgage to
the Building association to secure future
payments, and if his lot is half paid for,
the Building association will advance
all the balance due on it, release the mort
gage of A and substitute B in his place.
If it is not half paid for, he must get a
longer lease from A, or make other arrange
10 this arrangements would be that ne would
have to dispossess B, his tenant, IN case he
ran, say sixth months, behind with his rent
and gave no security and place another
tenant IN his stead as he would have to do if
he owned the house himself and leased it to
any tenant. The usual delays of the law
would of course, have to be met in this case,
as they would had be sold oughtright, and
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usually done.
| THIRD PLAN.
A, the lot owner, gives B, the buyer, q
lease for twenty years, or one hundred,years,
renewable forever, with the privilege of buy
ing at any time, at the value appraised at
the beginning of the lease, B paying per
cent. interest on the appraised value, and all
taxes and assessments. There is no revalua-
ton on this plan. If the seller preferred, he
might require revalustion at the end of ten
years or twenty years, with the privilege of
buying then, or continuing to pay 6 per cent.
on the revaluation. The plan of per cent.
without revaluation, is the Cincinnati plan,
on which the millionaire Nicholas Long
worth managed his estate; and his success as
a real estate man should be sufficient rea-
son to induce our st. Paul real estate men
to examine it and see if they cannot make
more money by it, than to keep their lots
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as we'll as to the city, and sell only to mar.
ried men if they are lucky enough to find
such. There is, also, a similar system in
Philadelphia, and these long and perpetual
leases are regarded by the shrewdest dealers
as the best system of disposing of real estate.
If we can adopt it in ST. Paul it will be as
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ers in place of the old fiat boat system of our
fathers. 1t is hard to convincs a st. Paul
man that it would pay him to dispose of his
| real estate in this wsy but the actusI tenden-