Evening star., 1942-09-05
Loan League Says
Purchase Of Home
Hedges Initiation
Estimates 5000, 900
Heads of Families
Could Buy Now
Special Dispatch to The Star.

Special Dispatch to The Star.
CHICAGO, Sept. 5.-There art
five to six million heads of families
those who will run the civilian econ.
omy for the duration and hence
expect to stay put, for whom buying
home will be real wartime
economy, according to the Home
Building and Home Owning Com
mittee of the United States Savings
and Loan League. This organiza-
tion puts its stress on purchase OF
existing homes, and says such q
policy is good imitation hedging and
that it will be easier for most peo-
pie to start paying for their homes
now than to wait until the war is
over.
The committee arrived at their
figure by following recent estimates
that out of a Sc 900, ,00O- unit nationa,
labor force, probably 10000, 900 will
not be used in the armed forces or
in war industry. They deducted from
these 100000 as home ownership
prospects probably 100000 who
own their homes already; another
million who have incomes toe
meager for home ownership, and
another million and half who
probably will remain unemployed
The committee feels it is a con-
servatiye conclusion that five to six
million should be prospects for home
ownership during the war period.
Four Arguments Advanced.
Outweighing all the arguments
OF the uncertainty of the times
and times are never certain any,
way-are four arguments for buyine
an existing home of attractive de-
sign and good quality construction
which fits the income, says Ralph
H. Cake, Portland, Greg, chairman
of the committee.
l. Buying home today is an
lndisputable way to get the most
out OF the dollars which come to
hand. since the infiationary trends
in the war economy are being
merely checked rather than elm
mated, and it seems inevitable that
dollars will have smaller purchas-
ing power next year. Spending
them for tangible, long time neces-
sites of life is common sense.
2. The same unprecedented terms
OF home financing developed during
the last decade are available to
buyers today and mortgage money
is plentiful. That many of yester-
days renters have been Quick to
recognize this fact is witnessed by
the increasing dollar volume of
nome purchase mortgage loans
made in 1912.
Competing Items Advanced.
3. The practical elimination of
competing items for the family's
dollars, the automobile and its daily
ration of gasoline, the refrigerator
and radio models, will make the
monthly payment on a home come
easier as the war economy develops.
Already prepayments on home loans
have stepped up every month in
1912. Even the drastic taxes now
under consideration will not use all
the money which time payments
on consumer goods used to take.
4. A home bought now and paid
well down toward debt-free owner
ship by two or three years from now
will be a most advantageous pos
session IN comparison with the cost
Of going into the market after the
war to buy home. There is like
lihood that the demand from would
be home owners after the peace is
won, those whose futures are fairly
settled again after the war years
will tend to drive up the prices OF
existing homes as well as create a
home building boom. In such a
situation man with his home halt
paid for Is a good home economist