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Real Estate Record
AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.
Vol. XXYI.
NEW YOEK, SATUEDAY, DECEMBIJE 18, 1880.
No. 666.
Published Weekly by
C^e K«al €sto Sworlr ^ssodatxon.
TERMS.
ONE YEAR, in advance... .810.00.
Communications should be addressed to
C. W^. SAV EET,
No. 137 BaoAnwAY
REAL ESTATE IN 1880.
The end of the year now rapidly approach¬
ing enables owners of property, dealers and
brokers, to take a retrospective view of the
year's business in real estate. In fact, " it
pays " to take such a glance backward, at a
time when books must be posted, balances
settled, and when arrangements are gener¬
ally entered into for new combinations and
new enterprises.
Standing as we do, therefore, to-day,
within sound almost of the Christmas bells,
ifc is but just that we should permit the
business of 1880, so far as New York i-ealty
is concerned, to pass before us in review. At
the very start we may be met with objec¬
tions by the over-sanguine dealers who bid
us to wait a while, but The Record prefers
to do everything in its proper time and when
occasion calls for it. That occasion has now
arrived and account of stock must be taken.
On several occasions during the year now
about expiring have we congratulated
owners and dealers at the constantly im¬
proving condition of the market, and yet
there are to-day many of them not satisfied
with the actual condition of affairs. These
last, however, constitute the fag-end of a
clique, which, seven years ago, brought in¬
vestors to the very verge of ruin. They
imagined, when in February and March
matters began to set in lively, even on some
portions of the West Side, that real estate
would get along "booming" from one end
of Manhattan Island to the other, and they
found out only their mistake a month or
two later, when for the last time, it is hoped,
they ascertained to their cost that this mar¬
ket no longer was a football to be tossed into
the air or lowered to the ground at the mere
whim of players.
It was not until the great sale held by the
Mutual Life Insurance Company that any¬
thing Hke market values were established.
The buyers there.were bona Jide investors,
and what they there and then decreed be¬
came the basis for subsequent transactions
during the siimmer. The prices there es¬
tablished, it is true, were low compared even
with values of previous inflation years, but
they were nevertheless with unanimous con¬
sent accepted as a guide for subsequent
operations. As summer passed along and
but.few transactions of importance were re¬
corded, the " boomers" of .February and
March took back seats. Honest investors
continued to crowd to the front, however,
and in almost every instance they succeeded
in getting considerable real estate for very
little money.
The autumn at once revealed the basis
upon vfhich rests the strength of the real
estate market in New York and suburbs.
The simple question of supply and demand
began to teU. Builders, who only a year
ago thought they had entered upon venture¬
some enterprises, found a ready sale for all
of those houses, the construction of which
came up to ifche expectations of the buyers
of the period. The luore houses were sold,
the more vacant lots were disposed of, this
time, too, with occasional heavy profits.
While speculation did not dare to rait>e its
head defiantly, the simple investment de¬
mand gave unusual strength to the market.
Capitalists who had in the last few years
improved their vacant lots and fared well
by them, doubled their purchases and in¬
creased the number of their improvements,
thus reflecting in the very best manner pos¬
sible the increasing growth of New York,
Brooklyn and Westchester.
Even the exciting canvass which pre¬
ceded the Presidential election did not de¬
ter bona fide investors from making more
and more purchases of real estate in and
around Manhattan Island. The large supply
of money on hand here and elsewhere low¬
ering the price which capital usually
commands at this season of the year, has
since increased the number of new investors
in our market, as has been shown regularly
in these columns from week to week. Mer¬
chants and professional men, schooled by
the experiences of the past few years, have
learned where to place their surplus funds,
and they do so now with care and caution and
after carefully studying the situation.
While the year ends therefore with no large
profits in the pockets of the speculators, it
leaves the real estate market in as strong
and healthy condition as could possibly be
desired. The very absence of speculative
control of the market places it in a position
more inviting to investors than ever before.
It is indeed a rising market, and not many
days of the new year will have been passed
before the effect of the present constantly
increasing demand for real property in our
midst will be felt not only in New York, but
in adjoining towns and villages.
THE OUTLOOK FOR REAL ESTATE.
All the indications point to the year 1881
as seeing the commencement of the greatest
advance in real estate known to the history
of the country. This enhancement of the
value of realty will not be conflned to city
or town property. It will include as well
cultivated farms and wild land. The year
1881 will see more railway projects started
than any previous twelfth month, and a
greater mileage of roads constructed than any
previous two years in our history. The great
prosperity of the West is due mainly to the
enhancement in value of land, which, in
turn, is due to the railroads started and com¬
pleted or partially completed previous to the
panic of 1873. Nearly aU these enterprises
had a legitimate basis provided the times had
continued good. They were meant to supply
a real want, but the collapse of our paper
currency, the reduction in values brought
about by the demonetization of silver, chilled
and for a time kUled the railway enterprises,
and when they became restored to life by the
resumption of specie payments and the
addition to our currency of the vast stores
of gold and silver, not only in this country
but outside of it, this occurring simultane¬
ously with immense crops here arid poor
crops abroad, resulted in an enhancement in
the values of agricultural land as well as of
railway property in the far West that
suddenly enriched hundreds of thousands of
heads of families and made whole sections
of the Union prosperous beyond precedent.
It is now settled that America is ahea;d of
Russia and the rest of the world in the pro¬
duction of grains and provisions. Russia
finds herself unable to increase the amount
of wheat which she sells to Western Europe,
for the surplus is stationary, taking the last
twelve years together, while the United
States has increased its output regularly
every year.
The great facts of our time are the ad¬
ditions to our currency, the immense emi¬
gration arid the wide extension of our rail¬
way system. These are the factors, together
with the rapid increase of our population,
which are going to enhance the value of
realty beyond any precedent in the past
history of the country. We have already
explained how the telegraph makes money
cheap throughout the world, as it riiakes
available the treasures of one nation for em¬
ployment in other nations. It is now settled
that money wUl be so abundant that in¬
vestors must be satisfled with three and a
half, four and four and a half per cent.
Hence it follows that owners of productive
realty wfll see their property largely advance
in value, while real estate, weU located and
in the line of improvement, will shortly be
in eager demand as soon as it is understood
that stocks and readily negotiated bonds
have reached their maximum value. Every
period of inflation is closed by what, in com¬
mon parlance, is known as a *' boom" ii: real
estate. It was so in the paper money era.
When we recall the high price for Boulevard
lots and other unimproved property at the
upper end of this island, we have some ink-