Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 64, no. 1646: September 30, 1899

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September 30, 1899. KECORD AND GUTDE. 47^- Drv&Tii) p flEA.L EswE.BuiLDijJo A;R,c^flTECTUl^E,Hoiis0lou)DegouatioU, B^/s[^/ESS Afin Thèmes of CetIer^L IKteiiesi. PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS. FiMishcd every Saturday. TELEPHONE, CORTLAMDT 1370. OotnmuzieatloDs should be addreesed to C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vftfley Street. J. 1. LTNDSEY,-Business Manager. "Entered ai the Pfst-O'Qïce at New l'orle, jV. T., assecond^clasg matter," Vol. LXIV. SEPTEMBER 30, 1S99. No. 1646 EVERYTHING in Wall Street now dépends on the rates for money. While funds are as hard tO' olatain as at présent, no news can hâve a bénéficiai efEect on values, and this' explains why the very fiattering operating statemen'ts is&ued this week by some of the great railroad companies failed to raise the prices of their stocks. Thèse statements and the high rates for money .ought to open the way for htiying some good stocks oheaply in the near future. All the operating statements whlch make fav¬ orable impressions at flrst view, do not maiutain those impres¬ sions after examination. In some instances the proportion of op¬ erating expenses is so low as to raise a doubt as to whether some skinning is not being praeticed, and whether the needs of a year cr two hence will not make similar statements then impossible. The sanguineness that lias lately had disastrous conséquences in Tractions and Industrials has not been altoge-ther absent from the manipulation of Rails, and considérable discrétion should be used in buying at anything near présent figures. With something in the neighborhood o'f a billion of gold in the country we are again importing the métal, which says a good deal for the extent to which business has been expanded on this side of the Atlantic. la the circumstances the importation of goid is only a moderate beneflt; \t, helps the situation and prevents stringency, but it must also, ia the présent condition of the foreign money markets, compel sales from abroad in our security market and so keep prices on the downward tack and induce liquidation at home. The immédiate future is brightened by tiie promise of large additions to local pecuniary resources as a resuit of the Dewey célébration and oif the distribution of Octo'ber interest, the préparations for both of wbich bave already had something to do with the hard¬ ening O'f rates for money, which their occurrence ought in a cor¬ responding measure to relieve. THE great interests that control those wonderful sources of information that move stock markets before cabinets hâve risen or décisions of courts hâve been delivered, bave at no time appeared to share Lhe gênerai alarm over the Transvaal situa¬ tion. To-day, for some cause inexplicable ta the modest student of politics who gets his data from tbe outside, the cleaning of the Blate by the Iast British dispatch is supposed to bave further in¬ creased the chances for peace. If this thing keeps on this way it will be as funny as the innocent acceptanee of the lion from Cecil Rhodes by the Transvaal delegates when in Cape Town, and its indignant return when lhe présent arrived and the people at hcme at last saw the allegory in the little incident. Having taken the view we hâve of the whole Transvaal affiair it does not sur¬ prise us to learn that August was another record-breaking month in Rand gold production', notwithstanding that that was a month of crises and of announcements Lhat^war was just about to begin. The return for the month was of 459,709 ozs., and for the year cf 3,502,048 ozs, to compare with 2,697,917 ozs. in the same seven months of 1898, and lesser amounts for corresponding periods of any previous year. The European financial situation résolves it self into one of money, the condition of that market being nard like our own with this différence, that abroad it is necessary to resort to extraordinary measures to protect the existing stocks of gold. Until the new year needy borrowers are likely to feel the pinch of want and enterpi-ise to be checked by an absence of free flowing funds. A government report estimâtes the increased buying power of the British people created by increases of wagcF in 1SÔ8 at $25,000,000; this increased pay was accompanied by a small decrease in the average hours of work. Of the total num¬ ber of persons, 37,777, affected by the change of hours, more than one-half were building trade operatives. Among Australasian mining Industries that of silver and lead bas proved the most sta- ble and Jess sti'bject to liguidatioa and reorgaaization than ptier liaes. The foolish talk of boycotting the Paris Exposition of 1900 has ceased. In connection with the Exposition it is stated that the first portion of the metropolitau railway cannot be com¬ pleted by the date of the opening, April 15th, though it iS' hoped- it will be by June 15th, when the real rush of visitors will prob¬ ably not hâve been begun. The Western Railway of France was recently unable to obtain 20 locomotives it needed at home, anà only ten abroad; it had to undertake the construction of the re¬ maining ten at its own shops. At Berlin the question of the mo¬ ment is, of course, money, and the bank returns are carefully scanned for indications of the situation, but the resuit is not at all promising. The growing prosperity of Prussia is mirrored in the reports of the savings' institutions for 1897, and the pre¬ ceding 14 years, which hâve just been published. Savings de¬ posits increased during 1897 by more than $375,000,000, and dur¬ ing the last three years by nearly $1,000,000,000. The increase last year was over three-fourths as large as tbe total deposits in is83^ R The Realty Market HOUSE RENTING IN BRON'X BOROUGH. OUGHL>Y speaking, the building movement in Bronx may Bs; said to bave orignated with the passage of the ordinance which reduced tbe Elevated Railway fare from Tremont to the- Battery to 5 cents, and which went into effect in 1894. The year following this réduction, the number of houses projected in the Trans-Harlem district rose some 54 per cent., while eaeh succeed¬ ing twelvemonth's building statistics hâve surpassed those of its immédiate predecessor, It was not untH 1898, however, that the constructional movement assumed such proportions as'to create a fear of overbuilding. From January, 1898, to July, 1899, plans were filed for 1,329 flats and 1,166 dwellings, with a housing ca¬ pacity of, say, 62,000 persons, counting ten families to each flat" and one to each dwelling. The buildings projected during the first half of the présent year were disproportionately numerous. . but, oa the other hand, increasing cost of construction is mate¬ rially reducing the projections for the current six months. The: majority oi houses begun this year are prohahjy not yet com-- pleted. Nevertheless, including vacancies left over from 1S97, we may assume that during the past eighteen months new housing. accommodations for 62,000 people hâve been thrown upoa tho market. The Health Board estimâtes that the population of the borough- increased some 26,400 between July, 1S9S, and July. 1899, which would indicate an increase of 39,700, round numbers, from Jan.- uary, 1898. lhe Health Board'K estimate, however, is a purely- geometrical calculation bas'id upon the police census of 1895, ané merely shows wliat the natural increase would be ln the abseace of immigration, The calculation aegjects, not only the immigra¬ tion of the year immediately past, but also the incrément from this source during the period which intervened since 1S95, so that the farther we go from the basis of calculation the greater be¬ comes the divergence of error. It is a significant fact that, while despite heavy immigration, the Health Board estimâtes the ex¬ isting population to be only some 163,500, so far back as 1897 lo¬ cal statisticians, using the registratioa of voters as a foundation calculated it at 200,000. We ShaU, consequently, receive little assistance from such data, as are at hand concerning the incrément of population since the beginning of 1898. Nevertheless, the fear of overbuilding is un¬ doubtedly in a large measure grounded on a gross undervalua^ tion of that incrément. The argument will run somewhat in tbis fashion; The housing capacity has increased 62,000; the pop¬ ulation has, according to the Health Board, increased only 39,700. This leaves an excess, in housing capacity, of 22,300. However," as has been seen, the estimate as regards population is certaialy" inadéquate. Unfortunately, the Health Board's legal-tenement census, whieh is an actual count, not, like the estimate of the gên¬ erai population, a geometrical calculation, has not been totaled . up for Bronx, so that whatever corrective it might supply remains for the moment unavaiJable. In view of the inconciusiveness ot censal statistics the only just test of the theory of overbuilding will be furnished by the renting market. A canvas of the borough made this week brought out a pi-ac- tically unanimous expression on the part of agents to the eiîect tbat the supply of oae and two-family houses in désirable loca¬ tions is insufficient to meet the demand, while, in apartments, the oversupply, which is, perhaps, not so large as might hare been expected, is coniined chiefly to 5-room flats. It was generally remarked that increasing coat of construction Is aeting as an important check to the further productioa of the common type of flat, and some actual cases were instanced wbere work has been suspended, although lhe excavationss are completed and the foundations laid. Lccal conditions, therefore, unquestionably favor an invesiment movemeui in the coming brokerage season, primarily in small houses and, sympathetically, iu other forms of- I