The New York herald., 1921-08-01
TURN IN BUILDING
IS EXPECTED SOON
Small Home i'm Favor Now, but
Big Structures Will BE
Needed Before Long.

Small dwelling construction in the
suburbs. as well as in the outlying sec
tions of the city. is the one branch OF
the building business that commands
the respect of the careful analyst in
the construction field, say the current
Doto Daily Building Reports. Some
apartment house erection, though scat
tered, offers spotty trade opportunities
to large quantity sellers. Furthermore
there appears to be a tendency toward
an increase in volume of this sort OF
building activity. probably lastinl
through the winter and well into the
spring of next year. Firms specializing
in supplying this section of the building
industry with materials and equipment
are inclined to look upon reports OF
stagnated building activities as fancied
On the other hand, the firms catering
to large order building projects admit a
reactionary tendency. Opinions in sec
tions of the building construction indus
try range all the way from a 35 per
cent of normal building market between
now and the building season of 1922 to
complete standstill.
Present fundamental conditions In the
building construction market here do
not justify the views cherished as facts
by either type OF building investor
Home building is accelerated by fear OF
an impending turn upward in building
t,,nfn rial .s..t L:
construction. such as office building,
large apartment house. institutional, spe-
cialized or amusement building enter
prises are being retarded because of a
fixed idea that building material and
labor costs are going to be lower.
Uncertainty Is Chief Cause.
But underlying all other reasons for
the retardation of all but habitation
building Is the uncertainty among their
projectors about the stability OF demand
for the commercial type of building
construction enterprise. Small building
projectors know that there is demand
for low priced dwelling accommodation.
Large building projectors cannot spur
themselves to investing millions in pro-
viding rentable space for which they
know demand Is at present light. Big
building investment is always freer
when 1t Is pushed by demand and it Is
weakest when 1t is called upon to an
ticipate demand.
Just little while later, when there Is
as strong a demand for business space
as there is at present for housing space
the building construction tide will turn
regardless OF whether building materials
are high in price or down or whether
wages are high or low.
The day of the turn In the type ol
dominant building activity is not more
than a few months away. The accumu.
lation of great boards Of gold en-
courages initiation. and were 1t not for
the wide ranges in foreign exchange
the trend of economic index figures
would long ere this have been In diff.
ferent direction.
Building construction as an industry
"a positively not headed for a complete
standstill. Even during the war, when
an official Government ban rested upon
non-essential building construction and
there was hardly enough building ma
terial on hand to supply the country s
war needs, general construction never
came to a complete stop. In the aggre-
gate the Year 1921 will rank for the
country Ntll up Will Tic tOLdl
reported for 1920, which was near the
peak of national constructional activity.
even though building construction costs
were also at or near peak levels.
Building material production is even
now scarcely able to keep pace with
demand. Here in this market, for
example. there was not a boatload OF
brick in stock at the wholesale docks
Friday, and the supply of brick UP the
Hudson River right now. with only
about one-third of the brickmaking sea-
son left is already 1o0,000.000 brick be-
hind ths reserve at this period last year,
when the market was bringing $25 a
thousand instead of sis wholesale New
York.
Brick VIII BE Made All Winter.
There is significance in the further
fact that a Long Island brick inanufac-
turer cannot meet his demand at $3.50
thousand at manufacturing plant, and
Is putting in more machinery to increase
his output. For the first time In Hud-
son River brick manufacturing history
brick will be made and burned all next
winter.
Some building materials are still be-
ing forced down. These include plaster
board. building metals, limestone and
ohio lime. all reported this week. puI
some other materials are headed up
ward.
ya.t ie that 4hn-c ie