The semi-weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1890-1891, 1890-05-31
U REAL ESTATE.

General Butler, who, rs a successful lin
vester in manufactures and as a careful
observer, Is qualified TO give sound advice
sent the following letter to young man
who sought his counsel:
LOWELL, Mass, March 80, 1S9O.-DEAp
SIR: All the improved real estate in
Boston, as a rule, has paid its interests
and taxes and quadrupled in value dur
ing the past fifty years, while during the
same period 80 per cent of all the mer.
chants and traders in that city have fail
ed, and 80 per cent of all the business
corporations have either done likewise or
gone out of business, so that their stock
has been wiped out.
In view of these facts | think that it
may be unhesitatingly asserted that moth
ing else is so safe an investment for
small savings as improved real estate.
Nothing is likely to grow in value faster.
You had, therefore, better buy a piece
OF improved real estate, however small,
that is paying rent. Pay in cash what
little money you have, and give
your notes, secured by a mort
gage on the property, for
the balance in small sums falling due at
short intervals, and then use all your ex-
ira income from the rent of your proper.
ty in paying them of. You never incur
any risk in ~discounting your own notes,
and when your friends find that you are
placing your money where it Is perfectly
secure they will be glad to assist You If
those notes should come due a little too
rapidly. Thus in a short time and al
most before you know il, you will have a
considerable and safe investment.
If you had q rich father who would
furnish the cash to start you in business
you would probably do better in the long
run if you invested it in the way l have
pointed out, rather than to risk it in trade,
meanwhile earning your living by work
ing for a salary.
Fol a young man just starting in life,
whose ambition Is to become rich,
would say never do n mean thing for
money. Yours truly.
BENJAMIN F. BUTLER.
General Buffers advice applies with
still greater force to real estate in Great
Falls, where the rise has been more rapid
than in Boston and may be still greater
from this time on.
But the generals advice should be
modified somewhat to adapt 1t to Great
Falls. Instead of buying a house and a
lot the young man might better buy a lot
and build a house on it by the aid of
building association on the cooperative
basis or the installment plan.
In that way he would be able to pro-
a house and lot almost at first cost.
Nor would he be burdened with notes
for the lot. The Townsite company, for
Instance, will sell him a lot for one-fourth
lash, with the remainder payable in three
annual installments, the principal being
to Z per cent interest. Thus the
'oung man who bought say a 5000 lot on
he first of January last would make the
inal payment on the first of January,
1893, and become sole owner of the prop
'rty. If in the meantime he has built a
house on that lot, the rent that he receives
Will enable him to pay in part for both
louise and lot. If he lives in the house
.imself he will have saved what he would
therwise pay as rent. In any event, he
will have what General Butler so much
ecomnends as a "safe investment"