Year: 1875




in them two wicked old fossils more remark
able than anything in the Yale collection.


Tho "Noiseless Panic'' i'm Real Estate


and the Savings Banks.


The unusually interesting situation of af-
fairs in the real estate market is the subject
of further article in our news columns to-
day. The investigations of our reporter in
his search for the materials upon which the
article is based were confined to no one sec
ton of the city, but were extended to every
portion of the metropolis. Recent influences
affecting values in various localities, such as
the fixing of the Post Office and the selection
of rapid transit routes, are duly considered
among the causes which are now at work ar
these improvements, if they have not turned
the tide of prices therein.


The fact remains, however that vast
amount of indebtedness secured by mort
gage upon real estate, is undergoing liquida-
ton through foreclosure sales of the hypoth-
ecated property, prices of which, compared
with those current in the flush days of the
speculation in real estate, show a reduction
averaging fully thirty-three and third per
cent. The effect of local improvements is
constantly seen in the returns from these
sales, the reduction for parcels in the heart
of the city being as little as only twenty to
fifteen per cent, while in the outlying and
unbuilt portions the decline has been as
much as fifty to forty per cent.


This shrinkage from the prices prevailing
or quoted three or four years ago has induced
some of the more conservative savings banks
to resurvey the property upon which they
hold mortgages executed before the decline
took place-a movement not only significant
of the condition of the real estate market, but
indicative of the admirable management of
these popular institutions. The prudence
of this step cannot be questioned with any
show of reason, but, as confessed by the bank
officers themselves, it is taken in the exercise
of technical and 'iron-clad" system of pre-
caution, which puts all contingencies of loss
beyond peradventure. AS the savings banks
lend only about forty per cent upon the as
sessed valuation of improved real estate,
which, in turn, is usually only sixty to sew
enty per cent of the market value, it is easy
to see that their advances are, under any
but extraordinary circumstances, covered by
a wide margin Of security. The life insur-
ance companies, and to less extent the
fire insurance companies, are also deeply
interested in the current ''noiseless
panic in real estate. The total mort
cages of the savings banks and insurance
corporations in the city are for nearly two
hundred million dollars sum large in ITSELF
but bearing the proportion of only about
twenty per cent to the property pledged for
its repayment, the bonds accompanying mort
cages being, as is we'll understood, o lien on
the personal as well as real estate of the bor-
rowers.


While there can be little cause for alarm
about these popular corporations the ''noise-
less panic in real estate must run its course
like a fever in the human body begotten of
familiarity with a malarious atmosphere.
The unhealthy elements of the market are
coming to the surface and being expelled by
the sudorific operation of foreclosure sales
The spectators, who are the sufferers, may
congratulate themselves that, unlike the
great real estate smash in 1887, the panic
nowadays has been so gradual and noise
less. On the other hand, the very fact of the
prevailing panic is proof of excessive depre-
citation in some of the property knocked
down at the Real Estate Exchange, and it is
a fair question whether, aftera scrutiny of the
whole range Of the stock list and the quota
tions of the merchandise markets, the capi-
talist can find anything just now more prom
ising as an investment than the ''shrunken
and mutilated' pieces of property which are
disposed of daily under the auctioneers
hammer.