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Show Real Estate Is the Cheapest Commodity in Salt Lake City Condition Prevails Despite Unprecedented Demand De-mand for Offices and Homes; Kendall ! Square Purchase Involves Big Sum. I ! i v 0 you know what is the cheap- J est commodity in Salt Lake j J City at tho present time?" asked a prominent real estate es-tate dealer of a business man yesterday. "Well, if there is any commodity in Salt Lake City that is cheap," replied the business man, "1 would like " "There you go," interrupted the real estate dealer. "You are getting ready to kick and fume over the fact that the exigencies of war have caused the price of flour and bacon and bread and canned goods and everything else of an ediblo nature that contributes to brain and brawn has gone uup. Of course it has all gone up. And why should we protest? I "But that is not what I started out to say, and I am going to say it right now, "before you butt in with a wail because the price of onions has again been advajiced. "The cheapest commodity in Salt Lake City today ' is real estate. Get that real" estate. And I also am going to add that no dealer knows why this is the fact. There has never been a time in the history of the city when general business conditions were as good as they are now. The banks are flooded with money and interest rates are lower than they have been in years. The same conditions provail in other parte of the country, with the exception excep-tion of the roalty conditions. Comparison Is Made. " Comparatively, real estate is 50 per cent cheaper than in Los Angeles, ban Francisco, San Diego and other cities of like importance. It-should not be. Every condition in tKis city trends to adding to the price of realty. Take the big office building for example. I mean up-to-date office buildings. Haven't tried to rent an office, or a suite of offices in any of them, have you? Well, try it and you will learn what the conditions are. There is a waiting list in every big office building in this town. In some of the buildings persons who want to move in are offering of-fering a bonus to occupants to move out. "The manager of one big building told me today that he could rent from twenty to thirty offices in his building by telephone within five minutes if he had the roonis. The only big office building now being erected is the Des-eret Des-eret National bank building and it will not be completed until some time in liilS. If it were completed tomorrow every room in it would be taken before night. Tho same applies to hotels, residence resi-dence properties ami apartment houses, despite the fact that most of the apart- , ment houses have recently increased their rentals. Many people are coming to Salt Lake to make their homes ancl they aro having no eud of trouble in obtaining satisfactory quarters in which to live. Recent sales of handsome homes is abundant evidence of this. Advances Are Slight. "You would naturally think that under these conditions the prices of real estate would advance, but they don't. There is very little, if any, difference between the prices of real estate today and two years ago. "In the general advance in value' of nearly everything in the last few years, two items stand out prominently as having hav-ing not advanced gold and real estato. There are many commodities which have nearly doubled in value, among which are wheat, flour, sugar, copper, lead, silver, steel and many others. Consequently, it takes about half the quantity of' the last named articles to buy a certain amount of real estate or gold as it did some time back. Increase of business and population has intrinsically intrin-sically increased the value of real estate es-tate 'without a corresponding increase in price, but it must find its level along with J"he other commodities, and when this great accumulation of gold in this country looks for investment it is going go-ing to buy the cheapest thing there is, which is real estate." The expert realty roan who made the foregoing statements is not alone in his contentions regarding the real estate market. Other men who have been engaged en-gaged in the' same business since Salt Lake City was a country village say the same thing in substance. They all agree that real estate is by far cheaper in this cit.v than in any other city of approximate approxi-mate size, wealth and business importance im-portance in the L'nited States. Business Is"" Increasing. The fact that real estate is cheap in Salt Lake City does not mean that there is a stagnation in business. Ot courso the immense drain caused by the demands de-mands of the war have prevented many people from buying real estate at this time, but a trip over the city and a glance into the books o' many of the big dealers and builders will satisfy the skeptic that Salt Lake is still doing business at the old stand and doing it in a fairly big way. Just at this time the south and southeastern south-eastern portions of tho city are witnessing wit-nessing the biggest booms in the way of building, although thero is much activity ac-tivity on the north and enst benches and in the northeastern and southwestern southwest-ern parts of tho city. In the northeast section it is said that there is not a single residence that can be rented. For this reason many persons are buying, lots and preparing to construct modest homes. The largest realty deal made recently has just been announced by the Ash-tou-Jenkins company, in the purchase of what is known as Kendall square. This property, which is in the center of the block surrounded bv West Temple, First West, Fourth and 'Fifth South streets, comprises about five acres. The property prop-erty formerly was owned by K. K. Thomas and it later went into the hands of the H. B. Claflin compnjiy of New-York New-York City. This company failed some years ago and at that time the Ashton-Jenkins Ashton-Jenkins company took over the management man-agement of the property and now announces an-nounces its purchase from the Mercantile Mercan-tile Stores company of New York C'ity, the liquidating concern which is disposing dis-posing of the, assets of tie original Claflin company. Offered as Market Site. This is the property that is being offered of-fered to the city by the Ashton-Jenkins company as a site for the c.itv market. The price asked is $125,000. The manager man-ager of the company announces that he has had a number of advantageous offers of-fers for the property since its acquirement, acquire-ment, but has held it in the hope that the city would take it. In the eveut that the city does not purchase the property it will be cut up into smnll warehouse tracts, or be utilized in connection con-nection with the farmers and wholesalers whole-salers as a privately owned market place, similar to the Los Angeles Market Mar-ket compajiy in California, the Ashton-Jenkins Ashton-Jenkins company announces. The company is now making arrangements arrange-ments with the Bamberger and Orem in-terurbnn in-terurbnn lines to have spur tracks built into the property, but tho vacant ground embraced in the five-acre tract will be utilized before the buildings are razed. ' Homes Purchased. Some big deals in city homes have recentlv been consummated, notablv-the notablv-the sale of the Josenh Lippman home on Fa-st South Temple street, for $l!.",-0(X; $l!.",-0(X; .the sale of the Mrs. George Y. Wallace home iu Federal Heights to Bishop Joseph S. Glass for $23,000; the sale of the Benner X. Smith home on Fast South Temple street to Judge Thomas Marioneanx for $11,000: the Or. Teuedt home in Federal Heights to Harry Hall for $10,500, anil numerous smaller sales. Reports from all the big dealers in Salt Lake City, as well as representative representa-tive men in all other big cities, are all to the effect that the people of the country are not being frightened bv the war and that business conditions" will continue to improve, now- that this country's participation in the conflict is getting down to a settled bnis. A number of the Salt Lake dealers report "bis deal? ponding." but they will not gi e out particulars until the deals are consummated. j |
