Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1938-11-06
korteaee|ess Town
Plan Accusing
National Interest
Bankers Want to Know
About No Interest
Homes in Wisconsin

RACINE. Wis, Nov. S (NA.NA)-
It's lucky thing for John Petersen
that he is going to California, and
perhaps Mexico, on . vacation trip.
All last week he answered questions.
He was too busy answering questions
to answer his mail, stacked noun
tain high.
All the questions were pouring In
because the Mortgage Bankers As
ISOLATION had heard about John
Pedersen's building small houses
and selling them without down pay
ments. without interest and without
mortgages-and going ahead and
building more and more houses
without financing" as mortgage
bankers conceive 1t. The bankers
want to know more about q success
story that is Enthusiastically unortho-
dox and that violates all the rules.
Getting ready to move into one of
the houses is Arnold Janott, a
Racine w. p. A. worker, who gets
$54.75 a month. Janott has Just
purchased a home-one of 60 along
three-quarter-mile road in Peder-
sens private housing development
about miles west of Racine.
A w. P. A. worker buying a home?
1t sounds crazy. Under Pedersens
plan 1t makes good common sense.
System of Buying.
Janott has been paying $28 a
month rent for three-room heated
house in Racine. More than half
OF his monthly income has been
going for rent. Clothing and feed
ing family on the remaining S26.75
has been problem. Janott will pay
$3.50 a month to Petersen for the
next two years. At the end of 20
months Janott can sign a lease for
% years at $3.50 a month or he can
exercise a purchase option-with
the f1rst two years payments count
ing on the purchase price-and
finance the business as he chooses.
Like all the rest, Janott must nav
the taxes and all upkeep costs after
the first two years.
III be OH the w. P. A. the first
chance get" said Janott, who was
formerly employed in a Racine ma
chine plant. 1T will be great to
have q home of my own"
1t was q different situation with
Van Glider, worker in the Nash
plant. He had been paying SIS for
an old upper fiat that was expensive
to heat. Now he is paying s25 a
month for his trim little four-room
cottage in Pedersen's DEVELOPMENT.
At the end of "a months he hopes
70 exercise his purchase option. II
ne can get home loan at bank or
building and loan association he
figures he can quickly pay OIL the
$500 balance due. He could lease
the home for the rest of his life
Tor IS month, plus taxes and up-
| keep.
Glider was painting the house
while Mrs. Glider was busy doing
the dinner dishes and tidying up
the kitchen.
We've been here three months
now and it's just like a little bit of
e>Ss~VSAA, 4vA4Ss AJlluCI SdlO.
Builder by Accident,
| Petersen, himself a former Nash
worker. started building houses quite
by accident.
One bleak afternoon, seven wears
ago. Mr.. and Mrs. Petersen had IS
cents between them. He was out
OF work. but was determined not to
go on relief. They stood looking
into store window at a piece of
ollcloth. Petersen had an idea for
curtain tieback made of oilcloth.
lhey stood debating whether to in
vest the As cents in a sheet of OIL
cloth or a slender dinner and no
breakfast the next morning.
They bought the oilcloth, took it
nome. made the tiebacks. went out
and sold them to neighbors-and
mad dinner after 8 pm.
10 make a long story short, the
tlebacks were WOW. The big Chi
cago stores bought them by the
thousands and money rolled in.
Petersen bought a 45-acre farm
on the mill mine road. He subdi-
vlded the farm into lots, 80 by 24l
feet. Then he built five small houses
and sold a few lots. When the lot
buyers began pathetic attempts to
build their own homes-after work.
ing hours and on days off and Sun.
days-Pedersen woke up to the fact
that only an experienced contractor
knows how to build a good house
cheaply.
The first houses were ready in the
fall Of 1896. The buyers did a lot of
word-to-mouth advertising and by
spring a score of buyers wanted
houses on the same easy terms.
Petersen built Is in 1887 and 80 this
year. He offers the house at 81 900
cash. $500 on time payments. He
hasn't found single buyer with
more than 500 for down payment
and doubts if he ever will.
Payments range from SIT so to $25
a month for the first two years and
SIPS to $3.50 thereafter on q o.
year lease. Petersen asks no down
payments and no interest on unpaid
balances.
Declared Pressing Need.
This is what the working class
wants" he said. IF 7 was after the
money I would be selling the houses
to old folks whose earning power is
about gone-then I would get the
houses back and could sell them
over and over again. But I've picked
out young married couples. Nine
tenths Of the buyers are under Is
years Of age.
Il could rent these houses for
more a month than I'm selling them.
Well, have lot Of satisfied buyers.
You can't live without friends and
you can't buy friendships, no mat
ter how much money you have. I'm
satisfied and I'm making money.
We are all gaining"
The houses are % by % feet, lust
tribe bigger than a two-car garage.
They contain living room, kitchen,
hQ thr0Om and fun or ft.~n> h>A