Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 61, no. 1567: March 26, 1898

Text version:

March 26,1898 Record and Guide 545 ESTABUSHEir^MM«;H2lii^ie66. Devoted ip Real Estati . BuiLOiffc AjiC^ iTEtmjRf .Household DEoo^noi*. BusiiJeS3 ;uJdThemes OFGeHer^I !^^tf^E:sl, PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS. Published every Saturday Tklepsonb, .... OoHTLANivr 1370" iCommunleaUona should he addressed to C. W, SWEET, 14-10 V«fley StreeL ■J. 1. LUNBSEY, Business Manager. ••Entered at the Post Office al New York, N. Y., as second-class mailer." Wol, 1^1. MARCH 26, 1898, No. 1,567 UNTIL tliere is a change in the political situation there can be no change in the attitude of the security market, flo lar security holders have no reason to quarrel with the course of prices. It has naturally been a declining one, but has resisted rail onslaughts to bring about slumps. While there is really no market for long stock, short selling is discouraged hy an obsti¬ nate under-strength that makes covering diflcult and unproflt- able. The reason for this is that outside conditions are healthy. There is hesitation in every direction to make new moves while diplomacy is holding us in such a condition of uncertainty, and one after another of our prominent men make speeches to pre¬ pare the public for the worst that can happen; but the country has back of it a few years of probably the most careful and con¬ servative husiness conduct in its history, and the weak spots are therefore few and far between. There is positively nothing the matter with the position of business, except the uncertainty that surrounds our relations with Spain, and, of course, our cur¬ rency incubus. These are serious enough, but the fact that they are not complicated by over-trading and speculation is something to be very thankful for. The public is told every day that war is inevitable, but the financial world has received di¬ rectly no such intimation, or if it has, it has received it with the most surprising coolness. As previously stated, the country has been told by careful men to prepare for the worst, but we are at liberty to accept that for what we consider it worth. Modern diplomacy has been known to do such wonder¬ ful things in the way of avoiding war, and it has hardly yet been employed in our case, that it is toO' soon to accept such state¬ ments at face value. Both parties have all along looked at the Cuban question from their own point of view, but both Spain and ourselves may yet have delicately forced upon us the views of other nations that may give each a new aspect of things that cannot be disregarded consistently by peoples claiming to be civilized, and may lead to an amicable and honorable settle¬ ment of om- differences. However, any settlement, amicable or angry, is a long way ahead; meantime the condition of uncer¬ tainty must continue, and uncertainty means business ob¬ structed and prices lowered. The City of Paris has been authorized hy Parliament to borrow $33,000,000 at 3 per cent, for railways. The appointment of Count Thun to the Premiership has not smoothed away the internal political differences in Austria, but it has somewhat disorganized the several parties, and created a situation, from which it is hoped that a sufficient force can be created to arrange and pass the States Treaty with Hungary. A recent Hungarian loan of thirty millions of florins was subscribed twice over, more than half in Vienna alone. The financial condition of the Government of Brazil continues to afford reason for great anxiety and de¬ presses Brazilian securities in foreign markets. Argentine im¬ ports in 1897 amounted to $98,289,000, gold, and exports to $101,- 169,000; the former a decrease of $13,875,000, and the latter a de¬ crease of $15,633,000. Of the imports,Britain sent $36,392,000; Germany. $11,114,000; France and Italy, $11,000,000 each, and the United States, $10,101,000. Of the exports, E ance took $22,999,- 000; Germany, $14,047,000; Britain. $12,985,000, and the United States, $S,321,000. France's and Germany's takings of wool place them as the foremost buyers. FOREIGN exchanges are also awaiting the settlement of the Cuban trouble, and also the outcome of differences among the European powers in China. France is evidently not willing to risk war with Britain over the Niger territory; and, if it is true that this matter has been arranged, it is highly probable that the China matter so far as France is concerned will be pacifically settled also, otherwise the Sokoto incident would have been kept open by prolonging negotiations to in¬ fluence the other. This fact adds importance to the announce¬ ment of the cession of Ta-]ien-Wan and Port Arthur to Russia, ,and leaves the latter power and Britain to settle matters be¬ tween themselves. The ugly feature is that Russia has de¬ manded and received a cession of Ta-lien-Wan after Britain's request for privileges there had been denied. How will Britain take such an insult? Somehow ultimate events do not prove that Russia dominates in the far East to the extent that we are too often led to believe. Witness for instance the withdrawal from Corea under pressure from Japan and Britain. Will we ultimately see a similar failure of her diplomacy at Pekin? We probably will if France fails her ally there. Much attention has been given to the recently issued report of the Bank of Spain, which shows how iast year the bank had to support the royal treasury and sacrifice its commercial business, but also paid the largest dividend in its history, namely, 24 per cent. Financing an embarrassed government may be a very profitable thing sometimes, British trade reports for the flrat two months of the year show considerable declines in botb exports and Imports. MONEY, I IT is not to be supposed that a condition of uncertainty that has practically paralzyed business on the Stock Ex¬ change and is adversely affecting trade in every direction, ex¬ cept in the line of war supplies, would leave the realty market untouched. No one is unreasonable enough to expect that. It is taken for granted that the dread of possible war has had its influence there as well as everywhere else, and when the matter is considered, it is not a question of whether a change has been produced, but of the extent of an admitted and expected change. Consequently we are alarming nobody and making no contri¬ bution to a commercial scare, if we refer to the subject and point out how far the resources of the realty market are cur¬ tailed by a situation that is not without its anxieties for the coolest heads, or even for those who are confident that diplo¬ macy will flnd a way to arrange differences with Spain, without need of employing any part of the mountains of war material that are now being so ostentatiously purchased. We all know that capital is proverbially timid, and we know, too, that it will leave one place to go to another if in the one tbere are better opportunities for proflt than in the other. These ■ two things seem now to be operating to make money scarcer to-day in the realty market than it was a week or two ago. The statements made by a number of the principal loan brokers of this city, and given in another column of this issue, show this to be the case, in spite of their brevity and the caution that evidently animates them. It should be pointed out that one of these brokers, and one whose field of operations is large, has not found any hesitation among his clients to make loans be¬ cause of the war scare, though the other four show that caution is tying money up and making the negotiation of loans more difficult than it was. So far our records have not shown any diminution of the amount of money loaned on mortgage in this city; on the contrary, both in number and amount there has been a large increase. According to our last issue, since .January 1st last, 3,704 mortgages have been made for a total of $51,556,380, after leaving out two to secure bonds, one to the amount of $11,000,000, made by the New Amsterdam Gas Com¬ pany, and one for $7,000,000, made by the Third Avenue Rail¬ road Company. The comparative figures for the same time last year were 3,588 mortgages for $42,198,397. Not only is this com¬ parison favorable in bulk to the current year, but also in the average mortgage loan. Nor can we discover, by looking over our weekly tables of mortgages published since the Maine dis¬ aster, that lenders have been more unwilling to place their money on mortgages since the news of that most deplorable event was first announced, the ratio of increase since the middle of February having been more than maintained. To enable us to judge of the effect of the political situation, we have then the brokers' statements previously referred to. and from these we gather that, there is everywhere more caution becoming apparent and a more careful scrutiny of the loans offered than is usually the case. The great loaning companies seem to have withdrawn none of their funds from the realty market. We hear of only one, and that a Jersey institution, whose loaning policy has been modified because of the political situation. Private loaners on the other hand are refusing loans, or, which is about the same thing, declining to entertain propo¬ sitions for loane until the situation becomes more settled. There is. too, a tendency on the part of capitalists to keep their funds in hand in the expectation that it will flnd more profitable em^ ployment In the security market than it can now do in the realty market. This makes a situation in which the poorer loans are likely to go begging, and it la one that should be taken into account in laying out new building enterprises, Wtille tbere Is