Los Angeles herald., 1909-06-23
ROMANCE OF
REAL ESTATE
By FREDERIC j. HAsKlN

gets the more he wants. SO he has
gone to Detroit to undergo a careful
introspection in order that he may dis
cover just where and what are his
shortcomings. The sale of property
on the installment plan will be care
fully considered, as well as the hun
dred and one other questions which re-
late to the successful management of a
real estate business.
Uncle Sam is a pretty nifty owner Of
real estate. In tact, his holdings of
realty are greater in value than the
entire wealth of any other nation.
When the census bureau experts took
stock of his realty holdings in 1905
they found their aggregate value to be
more than siXty-two billion dollars.
That is approximately equal to the ag
gregate wealth of John Bull. 1t is
more than the total wealth of France,
and greater than that of Germany. 1t
is nearly double the total wealth of
Russia, and equal to that Of all the rest
of Europe taken together. If the ratio
of growth of realty values has been as
great since 1904 as it was from 1900 to
1904, the Forthcoming census will place
the total value in 1910 at something
like seventy-five billion dollars. The
same ratio would make the total wealth
of the nation at that time about $780,
000,000.000.
Four dollars a square inch stands as
the worlds record price for real estate.
Ii was made in New York few years
ago when a plot of ground on Wall
street sold for $500 a square foot. Even
London cannot boast of any such fig
ure, its best record being under $400
square foot. Paris, Berlin and the
other great cities of Europe even come
below the London mark. In q number
OF the cities of the country men have
seen realty values rise many thousand
fold. Men are living in Chicago now
who were living there when they might
have bought property by the acre for
almost what it now sells for a foot.
The principal cities of the United
States show remarkable growth of as
sessed land values in the two-year
period of 1906-0S. New York leads with
an increase amounting to S3,90s,544.
Chicago comes next with an increase
amounting to $256,645, 1856. other cities
follow in the order named: Pittsburg,
having increased her area from twenty
nine square miles to about forty square
miles, $243, ,S20219; st. Louis, $91 ,549. 1896;
Cleveland, $72, ,240; Philadelphia, $71,-
323,710; Baltimore, $65,525,9 1868; Boston,
$21,577,205. 1t is claimed that no for
eign city shows such rapid increase in
land values as is shown by some in the
foregoing list.
The real estate association Of Seattle
not long ago made a very valuable
series of Investigations into realty con-
ditions in the cities of the world. the
result of which showed that the high
est price front foot recorded in Bal
timore Is $4,000, and in Atlanta $4,000,
although Baltimore has four times the
population of Atlanta Seattle, with
population comparable to that of st.
Oh
as compared with $3.50 for st. Paul.
Rome, Italy, with population equal to
that of San Francisco, shows a front
foot record of $24, while San Francisco
shows $4,000. 1t has been the expert
ence of many cities that every thousand
added to the population increases realty
values in the business district about
S12 to SIC a front foot, although the
population of some cities has swollen
100000 without increasing residential
district values a single dollar.
It was long thought that the sky
scraper got the drop on the little build
ing by its side, injuring its value as 1t
was overtowered. But real estate men
know the opposite to be true. The
menace of the little building being re-
placed by a slSyscraper Is always pres
ent In the mind Of the skyscraper own
err and usually the owner of the little
building names his own price when he
gets ready to sell. In some instances
where there are two high buildings to
be erected on either side of low one,
the capitalists financing the two will
pool interests and acquire the low
structure, holding it in perpetuity to
prevent the erection of high building
on its site. 1t is said that there are
many instances where the razing of
little building adjacent to skyscraper
and the erection of tall building
thereon would serve to cut down the
earning capacity of the skyscraper at
least third-owing to the cutting off
of light and air.
Men often think of the treatment
accorded the Indian by the white man
as having been unjust. Some one has
figured that If the money that was paid
to the Indians for the island of Man
haitian had been carefully compounded
at per cent interest it would now
equal the present assessed value of the
island. It is perhaps true that If the
money paid by William Penn for Penn
sylvania had been compounded from
then to now its amount would be
equivalent to the assessed value of all
the lands acquired.
The purchase of land for the estab-
lishment of parks is regarded by some
as an unwise expenditure of public
funds But entirely aside from the in
calculable benefits derived from the
creation of these breathing places,
parks represent good investments. Cen
traI park New York cost the city, to-
gether with the improvements put on
it, SIS, 900, 900. Counting interest on the
investment, it's cost today represents
S60. .OoO, 900. Yet realty men say that IL
the city should decide to close out its
holdings in Central park $200,000,000
could be realized therefrom. In every
other city of the country the same
principle obtains.
Canada realizes the extent to which
railroads increase realty values, and Is
now aiding in the building of hundreds
of miles of lines into undeveloped ter
ritory. She is making steel rails the
advance agent of civilization, and ex-
pects to reap golden harvests of in
creased taxable values. She is getting
thousands of the best citizens of the
United States, and they are taking with
them millions Of dollars of wealth.
Incomes derived from real estate vary
remarkably. In some cases 1t goes into
the hundreds of thousands per acre, as
in the slxyscraper, and from that to
nothing Most cities place the net in
come from business property at from
4 to Z per cent. 1t must be remembered,
however, that this takes no account of
enhancement of values, which some-
times amounts to more than the net in
come from rents.
The average annual savings of the
people of the United States amounts to
the increases in wealth. More than
half nP Tl1ia rOYrnoc from