Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1937-05-08
MORTGAGE LOANS
CLIMB IN MARCH
$780, 900, 900 Mark Exceed
ed Again, Passing February
Level by % Per Cent.

Mortgage loans by the savings,
building and loan associations
climbed back in March above the
sl00,0O0,00O mark which they sus-
tanned monthly from April through
December of last year, the United
States Building and Loan League an
nounced today. Passing the February
total by % per cent and the March,
1885, figure by 22l per cent, the March
mately 46,250 and the volume was
placed by the league at $106.583, 500.
The figure brought the first quarter
total of mortgage lending business of
the associations up to 1852 ,872 200 or
81 per cent more than the transactions
year. This is the highest first quarter
total recorded since the league began
to keep monthly figures five years ago
and is three and half times the loans
disbursed in like period of 1884, the
lowest point of activity for the
institutions.
Encouraged by the unmiStakable
prosperity direction of the thrift and
home financing institutions activity,
Morton Bodfish, secretary Of the
league, indicated that the analysis of
purposes for which the March loans
were made. tells an even more mean
ingful story of peoples growing in
terest in property ownership.
One dollar out of each S163 dis
bursed in March loans went for the
purchase and construction of homes.
For the same month last year con-
struction and purchase loans &C
counted for only one dollar out of each
5000 disbursed Actually, the amount
OF money put out by the associations
to refinance home owners existing
obligations to some other source of
mortgage money was larger this
March than last, by some $780,
600, but the increases in totals for
purchase and construction loans were
so noteworthy as to dwarf the pro-
portion Of refinancing loans to total
loans by comparison.
The number of March construction
loans was estimated at $1,000 practi-
cally all of them for the building OF
new one-family homes. the average
amount borrowed on the new homes
being $3,410. Purchase loans which
We'd in volume with those of July
and September 1886, to make March
the second highest month in the
past 18 for this type of loan still held
the lead over construction loans which
they have had since the beginning O!
the year, owing largely to seasonal
instructions to home building in some
parts of the country in March and
the Winter months preceding.
Mr.. Bodf1sh also indicates that some
OF the loans listed by the associations
as purchase loans represent the money
required to transfer a neWly-built
house from the Observation-Disclosures
hands to its first owner-occupant's
possession. In many cases there
existed an agreement between the
association and the builder that the
latter's funds would not be tied up In
the house save during the period in
tervening between building and selling
since the association stood ready to
finance the purchaser.
Thus even more of the savings and
loan disbursements than are apparent
on the surface of the analysis were
factors in the actual revival of build
ing and building employment" COM
mented the league official.
He indicated that the Bureau of
Labor statistics report a 2 per cent
increase in employment in private
construction during March as COM
pared with February. and a 23.6 per
cent increase over March, 1886. The
percentage Of change in the building
lndustry's employment between March
and year ago was larger than for
any OF the non-manufacturing indus
tries reporting to the bureau. with the
exception OF the metalliferous industry