Evening star., 1934-06-30
LOVE FOR HOMES
SHOWN IN FIGURES
49 Per Cent of City Families
Have Not Moved in
Three Years.

The attachment of the average
American family to particular
dwelling place is well demonstrated
by the current figures coming from
the C. w. A. real property inventory.
Philip Lieber of Shreveport, La, pres
ident of the United States Building
and Loan League, points out.
Showing that 40 per cent of the
families in cities already reporting
have lived in their present houses for
upward of three years and per cent
of them have lived there longer than
20 years, the league president says
that the ownership of their homes
would certainly be the logical pro-
cedure of people who get so attached
to place any way.
He points out that the figures for
people who have lived in one place
three wears or more are particularly
significant, since their occupancy dates
back of the bad years of the depres-
sion and demonstrates how they have
held on to their homes, regardless OF
counter-inf1uences.
"PiIing Up Rent Receipts"
ut is confidently anticipated In
building and loan circles that the re-
ports from the inventory will give
many renting families food for
thought on the subject of home own
ership when they realize that there
are so many people who have lived
in houses even 10 or is years and
all the while have been piling up rent
receipts instead of an equity in the
property" said Mr.. Lieber. In the
cities reporting only 36 per cent OF
the families occupy their own homes.
This means that at least l3 per cent
of the total 40 per cent who have
STAYED in one home for more than
three years could have been anywhere
from debt free owners of homes to
holders of so per cent equity in the
property had they started out buying
the house with a building and loan
monthly repayment mortgage rather
than simply as renters"
Medium sized cities, which form
cross-section of American life from
conservative old New England to
young municipalities of the Rocky
Mountain region. have been reported
for thus far in the C. w. A. census.
Thirty per cent of all the families in
these cities have lived in their present
dwellings for from 5 to 20 years and
10 per cent are now in their third
or fourth year of occupancy.
"One of the leading bits of sales
resistance to home ownership is the
idea that the family may get tired of
one place and want to move to a
larger and better home in newer
and better neighborhood, and in that
case ownership of one home tends to
anchor them" Mr.. Lieber continued.
Little Of Nomad.
These figures show that there is
little of the nomad in the American
family when you get down to funda-
mentals. In recent years, with mod
ern methods of improving and re-
modelling homes, there has been little
reason for families to move away from
a place to which they have become
attached because it isn't large enough.
At least the figures do not show
great tendency for families to move
for this reason
The only truly large group of
movers is found among the families
which have occupied their present
homes for less than six months. This
factor may be attributed directly to
the influence of recovery and of the
depression hangover in many sections.
These two factors we're brought about
with removals to houses with less rent
charges and in many cases where the
recovery influence has been felt in the
undoubling of families and their NOV
ing into new homes. From this it may
be judged that in normal times the
average American family stays in one
home even longer than appears in the
present census. This is all the more
reason why home ownership stacks
up as a decidedly wise procedure for
the average family.
The real property inventory will
have untold value in guiding the
course of home financing activities
and other allied interests during the
coming years. We have here the first
figures on percentage of debt-free
homes and mortgaged homes to total
owner-occupied dwellings after the
depression has taken it's toll For the
cities reporting debt-free owner occu-
pancy stands at 582 per cent and
mortgaged owner occupancy at Alb
per cent"