Real  Estate   Recor





AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.





Vol. XXYIII.





NEW YOEK, SATUEDAY, DECEMBEE 24, 1881.





No. 719





Published Weekly by The

Real Estate Record Association

TERMS:
ONE YEAR, in advance.....$6.00

Communications should he addressed to

C. W. SWEET, 137 Broadway.
J. T. LINDSEY'Business Manager.





THE GENERAL MARKETS.
The bears have complete possession of the
Stock Exchange. Stock after stock is at¬
tacked and prices steadily gravitate towards
lower figures. It is understood that Mr. Jay
Gould is once more a pronounced bear, a
part that fits him much better than as a bull,
trying to maintain the market. Why the
market should go down in the face of every
material condition to advance it, is the
question which at present is being much
discussed in financial circles. Labor is
abundantly and profitably employed, man¬
ufacturing industries were never so active,
immigi-ation is unprecedentedly large, rail¬
roads are doing an immensely increased bus¬
iness, and yet here are stock values reced¬
ing.

Of course this drift of things must be due
to some general cause, quite apart from the
ordinary material conditions. The very ac¬
tivity of trade and manufacturing industries
is taking money away from Wall street. In
ordinary years the money sent out to move
the crops during the fall begins to return in
December. But this year exchanges are
against New York from nearly every point.
The surplus money of the country is being
invested in land, in manufacturing enter¬
prises, in building, and in a thousand spec¬
ulative ways outside of the stock markot.
Then, it is not to be disguised that the pro¬
posed silver legislation, urged by President
Arthur and Secretary Folger, has had a
depressing effect upon prices. Even conced¬
ing that in order to secure the consent of
other nations to bi-metallism it is desir¬
able for the United States to stop the coin¬
age of silver, still the fact remains that a
practical withdrawal of $100,000,000 of
currency, which is about the amount of fAl-
ver and certificates afloat, would necessarily
cause a drop in stock values from 20 to 30
points. Any withdrawal of currency, gold,
silver or paper, is contraction, and the stop¬
page of the issue of silver certificates was
immediately felt in this market. This is a
matter well understood abroad, and since
the receipt of Secretary Folger's report, and
Tiesident Arthur's message in Europe, there
have been heavy sales in this market upon
European account. The German bankers,
heretofore great bulls on American securities,
have been heavy sellers recently, hence the
weakness in Denver & Rio Grande, St. Paul,
New York Central, and the other stocks
dealt in at Hamburg, Berlin and Amster¬
dam. The terrible shrinking caused by the
withdrawal of silver as money in Germany,
in 1873, has not been lost upon German
financiers.   There is no more gold coming





this way, and without gold importations we
have never had a bull market in our ex¬
change since resumption.

The grain and cotton markets are also weak
in sympathy. The break in prices may have
one good effect, in stimulating the export
of our agricultural products.

Of course there will be a recovery of prices
sometime early next year. From the com¬
position of the committees of the House, it
is clear that there will be no disturbance of
the tariff, and then it is almost certain that
an effort will be made to revive our foreign
commerce by means of generous subsidies
to steamship lines. Liberal appropriations
will also be made for river and harbor im¬
provements, while doubtless some internal
taxes will be taken off. Should there even
be a good prospect of Mr. Randall's funding
biU passing, it may begin quite a formidable
bull movement. If the depression in Wall
street continues up to the time that Congress
reassembles, some legislation will be
attempted to help prices, for a lowering in
Wall street casts a gloom over all the mar¬
kets.





WHAT THE FIGURES SHOW.
Early in September we commenced the
publication of a weekly table showing the
condition of the real estate market, as told
by the number of conveyances and mort¬
gages, the amounts involved and how much
of it was due to transactions on the other
side of the Harlem River. The figures ^vere
interesting as they showed the fluctuations
in business from week to week, and furnish¬
ed operators the data by which they could
judge of the state of the market and the
drift of prices and transactions. Those who
studied the tables carefully could see that
there was every week an increase in the
number of real estate transactions as well as
in the sums of money involved. This is
shown in a most striking manner where the
oflacial figures are given month by month,
as follows:

23d &

Cons.      Am't.      Nom. 84th W. Am't. Nom

Sept.        389        4,937,744       103        59       218 061       12

Oct.         619        8,6.24,824       169        75       331560       23

Nov.        876       13.464,964      225      103      353,565      19

T. &
Morts.   Am't.     5 p c    Am't.    1. Co.    Am't.
Sept.       497     4,329,012     96     1,261,881     89     1.848,250
Oct.         793     6,071,026   134     1,332,181   141     2,095125

Nov.        954   12,315,113   208     2.556,695   166     5,303,073

Of course it should be understood that
September in the above table represents the
business really done in August, while the
October figures represent transactions of
perhaps a month previous, when the bargains
were made and before the titles were re¬
corded. When the December figures are
given, they will show the transactions main¬
ly of November. But the point to be kept
in mind is, that there is an increasing stream
of money pouring into real estate in this
city. If one was to judge by the transac¬
tions on the Real Estate Exchange, they
would suppose that transactions came to a
standstill during December, whereas, the
ofiacial list of conveyances shows liberal
^ buying and large transactions.





It is perhaps hazardous to forecast the
future, but if the present depression in Wall
street continues, it is not likely that the sale.s
of real estate will increase in the immediate
future. It will be an excellent time to buy,
for there is no immediate prospect of any
speculative enhancement in values in real
estate. There are plenty of houses for sale
at cheap rates, and it is very doubtful
whether as many edifices will be constructed
next year as this. The person wlio l)uys
cheap house property during the next two
months will have no reason to regret it. No
matter what stock panics they may liave in
Wall street, real estate on this island is all
right, and must eventually advance vritli
the growth of the city.





NEW OPENINGS IN THE WEST.

Capitalists with spare means and a wish
to make money would do well to carefully
note the progress of railroad building
through and along the Rocky and Sierra
Nevada Mountains, as well as the valley
between and the Pacific slope beyond. The
Engineering and Mining Journal of Decem¬
ber 10 and 17 contains two letters from a
very well posted engineer, that tells what is
doing in the way of raflroad building west
of the Mississippi and below the line of the
Union Pacific road. The activity is some¬
thing marvelous and involves a complete
net-work of railroads in all the country west
and southwest of Colorado, including Mexico.
It makes one dizzy to read the figures, and
it would seem as if it would take 50,000,000
of people to make these new railways pay.
Yet it is doubtful whether more than 3,000.-
000 of human beings can in any way con¬
tribute to the support of these roads, includ¬
ing those which run through Mexico. A
man must have extraordinary faith in the
future of his country who can make invest¬
ments in the stock and bonds of these new
railway enterprises. But what a world of
wealth is opened up to the mine prospector
and the agriculturist as well as the
small trader. The richest mineral regions
of the globe will contribute directly to the
most extensive railway system in the world,
for the tracks are being laid to-day through
nearly every canon and valley where mines
abound, and which have heretofore been
inaccessible. It is no wonder that there is
a mining excitement under way, notwith¬
standing the fearful losses of those who
bought mining stocks. The gold, silver and
copper is to be found in abundance along-
the slopes and spurs of the Sierra Nevada
and Rocky Mountains. Our prospectors are
adventurous and enterprising, there are
plenty of trustworthy experts, our mining
machinery is the best in the world, our min¬
ing labor the most intelUgent, and there is
plenty of capital eager to invest where there
is a fair chance of profit. Next to our rail¬
road building, our investments in minerals
and mines promise to be the great specula¬
tive card of the future.

It is a pity some way could not be devised
of concentrating capital so as to work min-