Evening star., 1939-05-20
Real Estate Interests
Should Join 10 Hall
Tax Rate, Officer Says
Limitation on Levies
Desired; New Day
Seen in Financing

Real estate mortgage holders,
equity investors and real estate
boards have common interest in
establishing conditions that will in
vite new sound real estate enter
prise, and among those conditions
is establishment of limitation of the
real estate tax rate, E. L. Osten-
dorf, president of the National As
sociation of Real Estate Boards, said
in addressing the annual conference
OF the National Association of Mu-
tual Savings Banks in New York
this week.
Mr.. Ostendorf said that other
conditions important to sound real
estate enterprise include restudy of
city plans and zoning ordinances
to meet today's conditions of real
estate use, sound real estate ap-
praisal and real estate management
practice and the progressive devel-
opment Of a new system of realty
financing, which now is in process
OF creation and which seeks to meet
the realities of the present.
With the keynote of the confer
ence cooperation for recovery, Mr..
Ostendorf pointed out that mutual
cooperation is needed between ele-
ments of the real estate industry
concerned with the activity and
safety of mortgage financing and
between these business groups and
the Federal Government.
Land Increment Fading.
1--WE can no longer count on land
increment in either urban or rural
communities as a major consid-
Grafton in either real estate de-
velopment or real estate financing"
Mr.. Ostendorf said. For genera
tions we have experienced in this
country a steady increment in ur-
ban and rural land values based
on growing population and the de-
velopment of our resources and
our industry. The more or less au-
tomato increment in land values
which thus occurred made it pos
sible for real estate to carry the
bulk of the cost of local govern
ment and at the same time offer
a safe and attractive margin of
value for conservative mortgage
loans. The rapidly approaching
stabilization point of our popula-
ton will make future automatic in
creases in land value highly i'm
probable.
. Moreover, the factors of decen-
tralization which are acting power
fully in all of the large cities tend
to spread out the existing total land
values more thinly and at the ex-
pense of those hitherto established.
This does not, as it may seem,
paint gloomy picture for real es-
tate, but 1t means that the nature
of the task involved has changed
in many important ways. From
now on we must create real estate
projects for their utility, not as a
speculative opportunity. What is
ahead is the workmanlike task-a
more satisfying task-of providing
the homes and business structures
that people want and need at the
price they can afford to pay. This
requires training and skill beyond
any that has proved necessary in
the past.
Financing to Be More Complex.
"As senior partner in existing
and new real estate enterprise the
real estate mortagee must take ac-
count of the fact that even in the
same neighborhood and under ap-
parently the same conditions one
real estate undertaking may be
sound while another is unsound.
The real estate financing of the fu-
ture will be more complex and diff
cult, but at the same time it will
place higher premium on the men
who are able to do the job we'll"
Recent economic storms have
left the mortgage investor with less
loss than in any other major field
of private investment" Mr.. Osten-
dorf said. Probably the most urgent
economic need in our Nation TODAY