Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-10-17
Architecture Not in II.

The business blocks are an odd mi1tu e
of country and city-massive buildings
alongside of shanties, while the pave
ments are a mixture of macadam, Belgian
block and ''mother earth" In q country
where money is dear, luxuries and wages
are fairly high, but the question here is not
SO much one of wages as of work at any
price. Portland seemed to me a very
sleepy town, and large numbers of
unemployed men thronged the high
wavs and byways. Compared with
Chicago they moved so slowly that they
seemed to be going the other way. They
are probably built that way. Money chang
ers are allowed to charge as high as 10 per
cent, but they often 'juggle" on the deal
and get 20 per cent, and Attorney General
Jones, of Washington, informed me that
there was no usury law in Washington, so
the men whom the Savior scourged out of
the temple can have u "go-as-you-please"
time with the borrower, who pays ottener 25
per cent than 10 per cent.
Taxes and values seem high, enough. In
Portland the city, State and county tax rate
is % mills on valuation of S44, 900, 900. In
Seattle the city tax is AZ and county 10
mills OIL valuation of county, S71, 500, 900;
CITY, SAG, 900, 600. The highest priced lots
in Seattle are 81, 100 per front foot, corner
of Yesler and First streets. The average
along the block is $3.50 per front foot. In
Tacoma, on Pacific avenue, 81 900 per front
foot is about the average. In Portland lots
on First street, between Morrison and Stark,
have sold as high as $4,000 per foot front,
and this is considered a top price, and
corner lots on Alder street with two
fronts have been sold at $1,000 per
front foot Comparing these with the re.
cent sale of the Messler lot at S41 per
square foot on Smithfeld street, near the
Postofice, Pittsburg, would make the value
of the choicest 2O-foot lots in these cities
relatively as follows:
Pittsburg $50 600
Portland lot -.-..-....--..-...-...... 4O,0O0
Tacoma lot.--.-.. OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES. lOOOO
Real Estate Value Test.
As tests of growth such figures are often
misleading A French savant has formu.
lated law that in estimating real estate
values prices must be gauged by
the number of persons passing
given locality. On that theory the
Splane corner, on Fifth avenue; The DIS
PATCH corner, on Diamond street, and the
Hartley corner, on Fourth avenue, and the
johnson corner, on Third avenue, are, since
the new postoffice location has been changed,
probably the most "congeSted" corners in
most valuable. Chicago has way of its
own in testing such things and illustrating
the difference between real and fictitious
value. Here is lot, saws the owner, that
is worth 81, 800 per front foot, and there is
four-stOry building Oh it-net income, S., ,O00
Owner says if four-story building will net
IS, 900 all eight-story structure will net over
SO, 900, for the ground investment is reck-
oned in with the first four stories, and the
interest ON the money invested il the addi-
tional four stories and the nominal increase
of insurance and taxes is all to be deducted
from the gross rental of the four upper
floors. A contractor is called and he sug-
gests, if the foundation is strong enough,
you might just as well run it up II or 16
stories as g. as everything that can be said
in favor of stories can be urged for 12 or
Is, and up goes the fourfold income to
S20,0O0 The land is no longer rated at
50, 500 per foot, but is held at figure
in proportion to its producing power
$40, 600 a foot. Then the vacant
lot adjoining is put up to $4,000 per foot,
and here the artificial value began to be SUBJ
stituted for the real. And so it goes When
it comes to real growth of real estate there
is nothing in the bounding West" that
grows like values in the East Permit me to
make an Eastern citation: In 1918 the
Lennox estate near Central Park was bought
under forced sale for 81, ,92O by Robert Len
nox. For years it lay as stagnant pool,
and Lennox in his will said: "My motive
for so leaving this property is firm persua-
sion that it may be at no distant day the site
of village, and as it cost me more than its
present worth" Lennox died in 1895
years later s., ,O0O, 900 was refused for it, and
last year appraisers valued it at one hun
dred and ten millions of dollars (S110, ,000,-
OOO)
The Jump in value of one tract in New
York could almost buy out "lock, stock
and barrel half dozen States or a dozen or
so of the ''magic" cities in the Great North
west
/ expected to refer in this letter somewhat
to the manufacturing interests of the Pacific
coast, but want of space forbids it in the
present letter. JAMES w. BREEN,