Evening star., 1934-11-24
CREDIT PLENTIFUL
FOR HOME BUYING
Professional Builders Will
Find 1885 Able to
Finance Owners.

When the professional builder of
American homes gets back on the job
in 1885 he will find plenty of con-
sumner credit for the purchasers of
his houses at the local building and
loan association offices.
This became clear today in the
statement Of I. Friedlander Of HouS-
ton, Tex. president of the United
States Building and Loan League. He
says that half billion dollars are
now ready in the associations for
home lending purposes and that ma
chinery is in force through the Fed
eral Home Loan Bank System to see
that this available money flows from
areas which are still overbuilt to
places where it is needed
There should be a substantial in
crease in home building in the Spring
of 1895 and it should hold up pretty
well throughout the year." said the
league president. Some of it will be
the result of the public deciding to
build homes of their own, but much
of it will be by companies and in
dividuals building homes for legiti-
mate profit in their sale, just as Eng
land is doing today. Before the ma
Jor upward movement in home build
ing starts there will have to be a
leveling of of the margin between
values of existing homes and the cost
of new building, either by raising
Of the market value of the older houses
or by a decrease in building costs.
We must also face frankly the prob
lem of localities which are still over
built and may remain SO because of
a stagnant major industry in the COM
munlty, or because the unWiSe build
Ing expansion of the 20s still shows
itself in an unused surplus.
Loss to Be Overcome.
with this sound understanding of
the factors involved, we may see
sensible revival of the home building
industry which has netted less than
$2,500, 100000 of activity since the be-
ginning of 1880. The initiative in
this building program will undoubtedly
be taken by the professional builder,
or speculative builder who always
has an important part in any home
construction program. While build
are not anxious to plunge into the
financing of such large enterprises as
are usually represented by the whole
sale building of houses their loanable
resources and their credit lines at
the Federal Home Loan Banks are at
the disposal of the family buying one
Of these newly built homes. Just as
the automobile manufacturer is will
ing to increase his volume of produc-
tion when he knows that the INSTALL
ment finance company is there to
finance his prospective customer, so
the managerial activities of the
builder will be encouraged by the
knowledge that the buyer of the
house won't have to owe him the
money, but will get it from a long
time financing agency.
In England today the builders with
the aid of building society credit for
the buyers of their houses are making
possible sustained construction pro-
gram which is keeping material
dealers busy. maintaining jobs for
building artisans, putting up several
hundred thousand homes a year, and
providing higher level of housing,
entirely by private enterprise. This
experience can be repeated in our
own country. where the building and
loan associations are the counterpart
of the English building societies.
Salesmanship Needed.
The progress of such a plan here
will depend upon salesmanship of
the home idea and leadership in the
actual construction of homes. Much
of the salesmanship will have to come
from the builders themselves. There
are great groups of families which will
not take the initiative themselves to
build a home, any more than they
would decide to have an automobile
built to order. but they will be at
tracted by newly built home that
somebody else planned, if it is up to
their standards in architecture, build
ing materials and planning. That is
q major reason why we must look to
the man who builds several houses as
a business for the initiative in this
program.
In many instances in the past,
this type Of man, under the title of
speculative builder has fallen into
disrepute, largely because his activi-
ties were tied up with the idea of
Jorry building, low standards of ma
terial and architecture. Often they
were themselves SO inadequately
financed that the start of the depres-
sion trouble for property owners is
often traced to this source. But by
sound exercising of judgment the
public today may get major service
from this type of builder without ex-
periencing any of the difficulties which
they. now know enough to avoid.
In regard to costs it is pleasing
to note that the rise in wholesale
prices of building materials which
played havoc with the building re-
vival started early in the year has
begun to be checked. In November
they are slightly lower than they were
in September. Rents are also ap-
preciably increasing, so that the mar
gin between market value of existing
homes and now building is evening
of in that direction, bringing the day
of building revival nearer"