The Indianapolis times., 1932-04-01
HOME BUYERS
ARE HELPLESS
PAWNS OF FATE
Man Takes What He Can
Get and That Usually Is
Bad, Says Magazine.

Bad, Says Magazine.
Here Is folowup on the series Of
hosnR stories carried last month in
The Times published with permission Of
the maFazine Fortune:
NEW YORK, April Prom be-
ginning to end Of the building of
home, less organization and less
control is shown than in a childs
game OF marbles, says Fortune
Magazine, in It's April issue.
The article is one of a series in
which Fortune is pointing out the
waste in home construction, due
largely to the fact that the build
ing industry is unorganized; that
money rates are too high; that labor
is too expensive: and that the SELL
ing cost of subdivisions is wholly out
Of reason. The article says:
4 THE prospective home-owner
appears with few descriptive SEN
tences, a maximum figure, and a
photograph of fireplace in Salem,
Mass. On the basis of that informa-
ton. and with the aid of book of
pictures Of houses built in another
country out Of obsolete materials
for people now dead, the architect
concocts plan.
Just Big Guess
THE plan is submitted to four or
five general contractors, whose chief
skill consists Of their ability to add
I'D the bids of subcontractors, make
a charge for their own overhead, and
sGbmit-and the contract is awarded
to the general contractor who
guesses, rightly or wrongly, that he
can build the house for the least
money"
The magazine describes the posi-
ton of the $10,000-a-year man:
Ten thousand dollars is a con-
siderable sum Of money When
$4,000 year, a man is the heir of
the ages-or at least of his own age.
He rides in a Packard or a Buick.
He enjoys the blessing of mechan-
ical refrigeration. Music Cor it's OPP
posite) is distilled from the light
plug in his wall,
His wife goes out in copy of
sport suit by Chanel His daughters
look as sleek as any mans daugh-
terS His food is better and consid-
erably more digestible than Queen
Victorias.
All Advantages His
"He can talk to San Francisco
and sleep at sixty miles an hour.
He has a power of control over his
life and power of purchase for
his needs which men, many times
richer than he, would have envied
a century ago.
Theoretically, therefore, the man
with $4,000 a year has no share in
the housing problem. theoretically,
he controls his home as he controls
his food.
Actually, the housing problem is
one Of the major concerns of his
life. He pays in New York quar-
ter of a third of his gross income
for the privilege of hearing the ra-
dio in the next apartment honking
and strangling morning, noon and
night, and the only lesser privilege
of sharing the siX-foot bathroom
with the youngest of the girls.
I'm Chicago or st. Louis or Los
| Angeles he stores his trunk and his
: fishing boots and his gun case back
of his dress clothes in a close-built
to balance the imitation fireplace
next door, and goes to sit in the
lobby of hotel when his wife has
people he doesn't like for tea.
Helpless With Houses
For the truth is that the man
who can control life in its more
transient aspects can do nothing
Y about his houses. He may own a
car of almost perfect mechanism
and of excellent appearance car
about as good in every fundamen-
tai way, as the best car to be pur-
i. chased
q But he will house at an entirely
different level He will house like a
billeted soldier in a crowded apart
ment or in row of ready-built cot
tages on an ill-paved street. And
if he attempts to secure in housing
the same value he is accustomed to
secW9 in other fields, he merely will
discover that he has stepped out of
his income class; that good housing
is not, like good clothing. a COM
modify of general price, but a lux
ury for the very well-to-do."
Hard on Material Men
Fortune details various reasons
for high costs in home building. For
instance.
Due to a lack of coordination
and planning, material men are
forced to meet the WITNESSES of a
thousand architects regardless of
the inevitable cost.
Fortune has pointed out previous
ly that builders could make more
/ money and building workers would
be employed more steadily if wastes
we're eliminated and costs brought
down to point which would enable
more people of moderate means to
2 contract for their own homes. But
says the magazine:
The building industry, second in
dustry in size in the greatest in
dustrial country of the industrial
age, is itself not industrialized.
How to Stop