Evening star., 1925-01-10
SHORTAGE IN BUILDING
i GENERALLY DECREASING
Real Estate Surrey Sho,os Greatest De-
mond Is for One-Fanily Houses.
Rents Are Rising.

Continuing decrease in the national
building shortage is indicated in
general survey of building demands
just made by the National Associa-
tion of Real Estate Boards. The sur
vey is part of the associations semi
annual survey of the real estate mar
ket. 1t is based on reports by spe-
cial committees of member real es-
tate boards in 259 cities of the United
States and Canada.
The extraordinary activity of the
building industry during the year has
brought about decrease in shortage
OF every type of structure. Another
year of active building operations on
such a scale, particularly IL directed
toward the construction of moderate
ly priced and low priced dwellings,
would make still more marked in
roads on the remaining shortage, the
report states.
Shortage in single family dwellings
is reported by 40 per cent of the
cities represented In similar sur
HeyS made by the association that of
June, 1924, showed SO of the cities
reporting this type of shortage; that
of November, 1923, showed 6S per
cent Shortage in apartment houses
is reported by "a per cent of the
cities, as against Al per cent so re-
cent in November, 1923. Shortage of
business structures is reported by 26
per cent of the cities, against so
per cent so reporting in June, 1924,
and 43 per cent in November 1928.
Shortage Generally Slight.
Further significance is given to
these figures through the fact that
many of the cities reporting shortage
fndiPafa % ic
slight, whereas last years reports
more uniformly indicated a high per-
centage of deficiency.
Overbuilding in some types of struc-
lures is reported by 81 of the 259
cities, little more than 10 per cent.
Six of these indicate a surplus of all
types of structures, 10 indicate a sur
plus of dwellings, of apartment
buildings and s of business buildings.
Last year only Is out of 241 cities
reported any form of overbuilding,
only one reported overbuiIding of all
types of structures, 4 of dwellings,,
Z of apartment buildings and of
business buildings. The great re-
naming unsupplied building demand
is for small one-family dwellings, the
survey brings out. The largest num-
ber of inquiries are reported for sin
gle dwellings. If this may be taken
40 Gil liolCdllOn OIL the future market
the greatest increase in activity is
likely to be in this type of property.
Business and investment properties
rank high in the number of inquiries
received, but they are outranked in
all but few cities by the call for
single-family dwellings High build
ing costs have operated to keep down
the percentage of building in this
type of structure. Any general, ac-
celeration of business in the coming
Spring, such as now seems probable,
will bring with 1t an acceleration in
the demand for business structures as
Well, the association points out.
The larger cities are catching up
more quickly than the smaller cities
with their building programs. A very
large per cent OF the shortage report
ed is in small cities. Shortages re-
ported by the large cities exist chief
ly in the suburbs.
For the country as a whole there
exists an enormous shortage of farm
structures, the survey states. The
shortage may be expected to translate