Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-09-17
REAL ESTATE GOSSIP
Little Trading Recorded Dur
ing Week Ending Today.
RENTERS ARE ACTIVE
DEMAND FOR HOUSES AND
APARTMENTS IN ALL SECTIONS.
Difficulty of Agents in Supplying
Small Flats Within Walking
Distance of Business Center.
ARE ACTIVE

Realty trading is dull and inactive. Real
estate agents make no effort to explain
this condition of affairs. The fall activity
that usually begins before this time of the
year has not materialized, and but few
trades are being made.
The agents who have houses to rent have
their hands full, as there is an active de-
mand for small houses in the downtown
section, and still greater demand for
small apartments, those of three and four
rooms with housekeeping facilities.
I'VE could rent hundred three-room
apartments in our downtown houses If we
only had them,' said dealer today.
And this in spite of the fact that in all
sections of the city there are apartment
houses being erected, many of them just
completed and others being pushed to com
pletion. so as to be ready for occupancy by
the first of October which is the fall mov-
ing day in Washington.
Many on Waiting List.
The experience of the fiat hunter has
be en- a hard one yet from every apartment
house every day van loads of household
goods are being moved out. But this is
orIy to make room for van loads to be
moved in. A visit to the agents of the
downtown apartment houses showed that
nearly every one of the small apartments
had a waiting list of from five to fifteen
These people had been promised the re-
fusal of an apartment should it become
vacant.
What Washington wants is a class of
fcur-room housekeeping apartments that
Will rent for figure that can be paid by
the hundred-d ollar-a month man." sad 4
local real estate man this morning. There
ere few of these. and such as they are
rarely nave vacant apartment. For In
stance: Take a young married couple.
a
house The man, of family has a salary If
a hundred dollars a month. What are his
expenses? Rent, $35: gas, SO; milk, 81 80;
ice MG; groceries and meats, what he
chooses to make them. certainly 81 per
day. This makes total of $64 leaving s36
on which to clothe the two members of the
family at the start. Now, even at this
rate 1t IS hard or nearly impossible to get
a small fiat within walking distance of
ones place of business. Then car fare
to the extent of So to $40 per month must
be added
Two-family apartment houses are going
up IN all sections of the city, but in these
houses the promoters have made it neces-
sary for the renter to furnish heat for the
apartments instead of having one central
heating plant for the apartments While
the rent OF these apartments Is less than
those in the heated buildings, they are usu-
ally out of walking distance of the business
section, and with the cost of heating added
make them almost an impossibiIity for the
young man of small salary who desires to
start little home of his own.
These two-family apartment houses are
said TO be good investments for the own
ers, for they usually rent for nearly double
the price that could have been secured for
a two-story house on the same lot and
erected at practically the same cost.
The Flat Fad.
However. Washington Is in the throes of
the fiat craze. In the past two years more
than a hundred apartment houses have
been erected, and this does not include the
| many two-apartment houses 1t is esti-
mated that at least 10000 people live in
Hats and other estimates make the number
much greater. The average fat family is
smaller than the average house family and
probably does not number more than three
persons. There are 5000 families living in
apartments, at low estimate The
amount of money paid out monthly for rent
In the fats is probably $lS0OOO and in a
year it is perhaps s2.OO0.OoO in round num-
bers
One of the problems of the development
of the fiat craze has been. and still is.
where the people come from that fill them.
Where They Come From.
An apartment house agent said recent
ly:
I'VE are as much in the dark as to where
nat-dwellers come from as the public Is.
1t is not indicated that they are leaving
houses vacant very rapidly. The period OF
the growth OF the apartment house idea
has been also one Of the best periods In