Real  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.





Vol. xxn.





NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30,1878.





No. 559.





Published Weekly by

t^ht %mi €>sMt %icoxti g,ssadaüan.

TERMS.
ONE YEAR. in advance....SlO.OO.
(Oommunications should be addressed to

C.  W.  SWEET,

Nos. 345 AND 347 Broadway





THE FALL REVIEW.
Tbe general conditions of the real estate mar¬
ket, as exhibit«! in its three important depart-
ments, are in no wise dissimilar from those which
cbaracterize the other great markets of the city.
The movement of general business has percept¬
ibly slackened during the fall, as the period
approaches when that great luonetarj' and in¬
dustrial reform, to wit, the resumption of specie
payments is to be inaugurated. The concert
of bank actiou will promote and effectuate tbis
most desirable consummation with greater cer¬
tainty and potency than would any number of
preparatory measures that might have been
enacted by Congress. Without the hearty co-
operation of the banks the government would be
I              constantly baulked and thwarted  in  its  most

"              sincere efforts to consum>iiate the change; and

the monetary conditiou of the country would be
thrown into hopeless and chaotic disorder.   The
nnanimity and agreement of purposes and aims
"               on th© part of the whole financial machinery of

the country places the prospect of resumption,
aud its ultimate and permanent success, outside of
the pale of reasonable doubt. No better proof
could be furnished of the universality of the
desire for specie paym-ruts—at least on the part
of the aetive business men of the country—than
in the studious efforts which have been made by
the representatives of mercantile" interests to
conform business as early as possible to the new
Standard and order of things. The slow pace of
business affairs during the present fall is but an
additional indication. of a desire to keep step
tvith the time of the new movement.

The prospect is well assured that the moment-
ous transition which is to be effected, by law, on
the first day of January next, will be attended
with no serious shock—possibly with no percept¬
ible commotion or disturbance of business inter¬
ests. The plans looking to resumption have been
so deeply and wisely laid, so carefully studied
and adjusted to the mercantile needs of the
country, that specie payments are likely to dawn
upon US with the new year as naturally as the
rising of the moming sun. No true friend of the
country, no admirer of its magidflcent commer¬
cial System, no patient believer in its future
greatness and glory can fail to participate in the
general gratification which the successful frui-
tion of this event will afford.

In all departments of real estate activity there
is evident that nice calculation of means, that
careful scrutiny of conditions and probabilities—
in a word that Superlative cautiousness which is a
type of the highest conservatism. There is a
quiet acquiescence in the resuits of our slow
march towards resumption, and whatever regrets
or repinings may be indulged in by the reckless
speculators of the past, their voices haVe faüed to





be potential in the market, and their misfor¬
tunes have long ago ceased to aroiiso the sympa¬
thy of prudent men. In true American fashion
the reaction of real estate values has been so
extreme from those speculative planes which
wei'ö once prevailing, that the present value of a
great deal of vacant property aud of some Stand¬
ard investmcHt property may be considered far
below the normal gold Standard. If we except
from our account the most expensive business
and residence property—that which is always
reliable, and, generally, in good or bad times
productive of large rentals—we might be justi¬
fied in saying that all other real estate values are
on^n average rather balow than above the plane
of gold quotations. Mauy reasons may be as¬
signed for this exceptionally depressed coudition
of affairs; but the principal and most iusuper¬
able one is tbe enormous weight of oppression
which real estate iu this city i called upon to
bear iu the form of municipal taxation. The
recoil of speculatiou alone would have de¬
termined a very heavy shrinkage of values,
and the settled purpose of the J government
to advance towards specie payments may be ac¬
cepted as another powerful depressent. In addi¬
tion to the leverage of these two causes, the ex¬
treme flatness of real estate values must be assigned
to the trip-hammer blows which have been deliv¬
ered by the municipal government in highly con¬
centrated taxes and fraudulent and excessive as¬
sessments. The undertone of the real estate
market is strong and cheerful, not to say buoyant,
particularly with such owners as feel able to carry
their possessions forward to better times. Specu¬
lators, as a class, are out of the race, and their
little plots of speculative territory have long since
passed into thelhands of first mortgagees, with
whom they become fee simple property, free and
clear of all incunibrances. With some, the fact
that our leading moneyed institutions bave be¬
come, by foreclosure, the proprietors of immense
tracts of real estate, is regarded as an element of
weakness. But when we remember that probably
all weak institutions have passed into bankruptcj',
and that the surviving ones are in a condition of
sound financial strength, we will see at once that
their attitude as land owners is not necessarily a
threatening one to the market. On the contrary.
there is everj' probability that they will carefully
nurse their possessions with a view of realizing the
füllest measure of benefit from them. The polity
of these institutions must enter largely as an in-
fluential factor in future real estate transactions.
Whether their interests are to be served by pro¬
longed holding or by speady realization, is a
question for the nianagei-s of these ins-titutions to
decide. As a rule, mortgagee owners of real es¬
tate are not weak holders or eager sellers, at least
for the first few yeai-s of their ownership. In
view o£ the extensive foreclosures, both corporate
and individnal, which have taken place during the
last five years, the real estate market may be said
to present the appearance, not of abattlefield
strewn with the slain, but of a battlefield where
the debris of battle has been cleared away, and
where the field has been made ready for new en¬
gagements. The s'peculative experiences of the
last decade will be potential in restraining and
repressing any future ebullitions of this kind; so
that we may look forward with satisfaction and





confidence to a prolonged era of strictly legitimate
dealings in real estate. The buj'ers, as in other
great markets under normal conditions, will have
tbe power of determining prices, and as the buyer
of the period is distinguished for his extreme
prudence and caution, we may remain settled in
the conviction that the prices of vacant land at
all events are not likely to take any verj' giddj'
flights.

In all previous crises, tbe resumption of specie
payments has been tbe signal for a renewed and
aetive movement in real estate industries. We
have no reason to believe that the dawn of the
new y^ear will witness anj' different experience.
On tbe contrary, with the establishment of rapid
transit between "the antipodes of the island, and
with the reasonable revival of general~business,
such as we may confidently anticipate is about to
crown the new era, we may certainly count upon
tbe development of more or less building activity.
Not, however. uutil the question of taxation has
been fairlj' and conclusively adjusted, maj' we
expect that extended, earnest and confident out-
burst of building industry, which should properly
mark tbe early stages of the rapid transit era.
Relief from extortionate and grinding taxation
would cause an immediate rebound of real estate
values to a just aud adequate gold level, and «
would result in such general activity that present
depression aud stagnatiou would be quiokly for¬
gotten.

Sal.es.—In sales of new houses there has been
a very unexpected and disappointing lull. The
years of foreign Expositions have heretofore been
signalized by an aetive fall demand for new
houses; but this year must be set down as an ex¬
traordinary exception. Though numbers of our
wealthj'Citizens went abroad in the spring, they
have returned very quietly during the fall, and
absorbed, all the rentable properties that were
offered, but they have failed to make any aetive
demonstration as house buyers. The demand this
fall heis been altogether inadequate to absorb or
even to materially reduce the existing stock of
finished houses. Both in the old and new fashion¬
able quarters many verj' superior productions
have failed entirelj- to find a market, and are
now being carried forward for a spring demand.
The prices which have been röalized for the few
houses sold during this dull and depressed season
maj' be fairly taken as the minunums of present
and future Standard vaiues.

In the old fashionable quarter, twenty-five feet
four-storj' dwellings, of average elegance and
convenience, have been sold at prices varying
from 835,000 to §45,000. Houses of twenty-two
and a half feet frontage have sold from |3'i,000 to
$,35,000. Twenty feet houses have sold from
$35,000 to §:30,000. Sixteen feet houses have sold
for $20,000 to S'i2,ü00.

In the new fashionable building quarter, above
Fifty-ninth street, and between Fourth and
Fifth avenues, prices have been established dur¬
ing the present season on about the following
Scale: For twenty-five feet Standard houses, §2$,-
OOO to §30,000; for twenty feet houses, from $22,-
000 to $26,000 and $2S,000: for sixteen feet houses,
$16,000 to $-20,000.

It is rumored that the owners of West side prop¬
erty are contemplating concerted action in the
matter of improvements, and that meu of nicaLs