NRLDA Reports on Home Building Situation

Washington, D.C., September 13 :

Last week we referred to the new type of confusion in Washington. Then we sat down and took a look at the Nation's bulletins to the industry over the past several months reporting rules and regulations coming from OPS, NPA, CMP, Wage Stabilization and so on, and we thought to ourselves maybe some of this new type of confusion and old type of confusion exists in the industry in respect to these rules and regulations.

Telephone conversations with leaders of the industry verified this confusion, but also encourage us to believe that while the industry is trying to understand the rules and regulations, trying to live up to them, at least in their major aspects, they are not concerning themselves and don't have time to concern themselves with the detail. If Washington can't make it clear how can the individual citizen understand them?

Business is good apparently-for the retail lumber dealers. Not as good as in 1950 by any means, but generally equal to 1949, a good year, but not the heavy year that 1950 was.

Continued Washington alarms about steel, copper and aluminum and their availability haven't apparently too greatly affected the construction operations in which our industry is interested. The real pinch here is apparently yet to come.

Today we get the August housing starts figures. 85,000, of which 84,600 were private housing starts. This rnakes the total for the first eight months of 1951 758,500 housing starts. We will hit a million sure this year.

Mortgage money and credit terms are still the retarding factors, as they were supposed to be. Two opposite viewpoints appeared on the mortgage front this week. The Savings and l,oan people announced that mortgage money would become more plentiful because personal savings were increasing, but the Mortgage Bankers, meeting in San Francisco, held to the view that the mortgage outlook continues to be very tigl-rt for reasons they have previously advanccd. The diilerence ir viewpoint is explained by the fact that these groups get their funds from different sources, so both groups are correct as far as their own operations are concerned. Talks with our people verify the Building and I-oan statements; namely, building and loan money is apparently generallv available, but of course the terms are not the easiest ories.

Talks with those in the field indicate that in many areas our dealers are doing a VA business on the direct loan authorizations again made possible by reason of the recent passage of the Defense Housing Act.

NPA already is giving thought to a possible cutback in housing in 1952, to some point below the 850,000 target which Charles E. Wilson set up some months ago. Any cutback would, of course, be due to a fear that there would not be enough critical materials for that much residential construction.

Originally, it had been thought that housing volume could be controlled rather closely by manipulating the credit controls, but the low-cost housing terms which Congress wrote into the Defense Housing Bill tie the hands of NPA and HHFA in that price class.

An HHFA ofifrcial said that, if it became necessary to holci housing starts next year down below 850,000 units, it probably would be necessary to abandon the self-certification plan and, instead, put in a permit system. But he had just finished saying that HHFA had talked NPA out of requiring permits tor housing on the grounds that HHFA just couldn't handle the great volume of applications which would result. More confusion.

Conservation officials confirm the fact that little consideration will be given to applications for authority to proceed rvith commercial, industrial and multi-family projects unless the ;rpplicants have adopted the "recommended" methods of conserving materials.

Since most pending applications were submitted before those "recommendations" ,were made public, many applicants may find it necessary to make some changes in the plans and their applications.

A flood of protest from back home turned the tide against taxation of co-operatives at the last minute in the Senate Finance Committee. An attempt will be made to restore the co-op tax when the bill comes up on the floor next week, but unless there is an equally great protest against dropping the tax it appears unlikely that the roposal will get back in the bill.

Nnrroxer

Rerarr, LuNlsrn Dear,rns Assocrerrox, H. R. Northup, Executive Vice President.

tVith Rounds Trading Company At Long Beach Office

Ed G. f,crgt

Ed G. Karst, assistant to Max Barnette, manager of the Long Beach office of Rounds Trading Company, was with the A. K. Wilson Lumber Company-of Compton, Calif., before making his present connection a few months ago.'

He served four years in World War II with the Army Air Force, and this period included service in both the European and Pacific theaters. He attended Penn State University. He is married, has one child, and makes his home in Los Angeles.

Tcrlly-Cordell

Miss Audrey Cordell, office wholesale lumber dealer, San cently to William J. Tally in manag'er, James L. Hall, Francisco, was married reVirginia City, Nevada.

Housing Volume Continues High in August

Homebuilders started 85,000 new permanent nonfarm dwelling units in August, a slight decline from July, according to preliminary estimates of the U. S. Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics. Private housing starts increased by about 3 per cent to 84,600, but the gain was more than offset by a drop in the number of public units started during the month. Virtually all sections of the country showed some rise in private housing activity.

In spite of the restrictive effects of Regulation X, the volume of housing starts during the first 8 months of 1951 (758,500 units) has exceeded that of the comparable period of any year on record, with the exception of the peak year 1950. The continuing high volume of residential building activity and the recent relaxation of credit restrictions makes it seem likely that the Government's original goal of 850,000 housing starts for 1951 will be greatly exceeded to make 1951 another 1 fr)0,000_unit year.

Al Bell Touring Europe

Al Bell, vice president of Hobbs Wall Lumber Co., San Francisco, left September 1 with Mrs. Bell and their two children, Diana and Dennis, to visit Al's mother in Scotland and tour European countries. They traveled by air and will be gone two months.

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