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Show THE READER'S DATE BOOK National Home Week Outlines Progress in Home Construction National Home Week will be observed coast-to-coast September Septem-ber 9-1C inclusive. The event, in which the home building industry puts its products prod-ucts and achievements on parade, is sponsored by the National Association As-sociation of Home Builders. Civic celebrations, exhibits of building methods and construction projects, exhibit homes, parades, lectures, lec-tures, special newspaper displays, radio presentations and other purchasers are in the $5,000 to $10,-000 $10,-000 class. Families with income of $10,000 and over amount to only 1.1 per cent of all home purchases. In other words, it is the average American middle-income family who is getting the new homes being produced. Although construction costs have gone up, new homes cost less today In relation to earnings earn-ings and income than ever before. be-fore. According to department of commerce figures, the $5,000 house of 1940 now costs $9,950, which shows a 99 per cent increase in-crease in cost of residential construction. con-struction. At the same time, the $9,950 house is much more easily afforded. afford-ed. In 1940, the manufacturing worker and the home town employee, em-ployee, earned $25.20 a week. It took him 238 weeks to buy the $5,000 house. In 1950, more than 11 million mil-lion manufacturing workers earned an average of $56.20 a week. It takes them only 177 work weeks to buy the $9,850 house. aclivmos are scheduled for many home towns across the nation. National Home Week has something some-thing for everybody on Main Street and in the local ' i community. For the public there is fl first hand, interest-in? interest-in? Information STtitai about new homes. FEATURE ow we1 designed, well constructed, attractive h o u ses are produced and supplied to home-seeking home-seeking families. For the community as a whole this is an opportunity for a worthwhile worth-while celebration Invoking pride in civic growth. The week offers the industry opportunity to show what it has ac-' ac-' complished and a chance to show its product under ideal "show case" conditions. All segments share in the demonstration dealers, realtors, real-tors, banks, savings and loan associations, asso-ciations, utilities, suppliers, lumber dealers, retail and wholesale institutionsand insti-tutionsand many others. In other words, many of the business men that make up Main Street. For the local newspaper it is the time to tell the story of housing, to give their readers information on a subject high on their list of interests. inter-ests. Many local newspapers across the nation will take the opportunity to produce outstanding special Home Week editions or sections. Since the end of World War II, the nation's private home builders have built approximately approxi-mately 5,000,000 new homes and apartments. The five million families that moved into these spic-and-span new dwellings if they are the Ameriean average aver-age of 3.6 persons each are enough to amount to 18,000,000 people. Actually, the blueprint hammer-and-saw fraternity in the period since the war produced enough houses to make a huge metropolis twice the size of New York, five times the size of Chicago, and nine times the size of Philadelphia, Detroit De-troit or Los Angeles. Not only were the houses and apartments provided, but a whole network, of utilities, sewer lines, gas mains, water lines, telephone and power lines, streets, highways and sidewalks were provided. The period shattered all previous concepts con-cepts of building. The importance of all this building build-ing to the home town is also shown by a little contemplation of all the jobs it represents for plain workers, work-ers, craftsmen and others on the construction jobs', and for the other millions who supplied and transported trans-ported the materials for the enormous enor-mous burst of building. Other industries in-dustries have shared as well. Add the thousands of miles of new carpets, car-pets, the trainloads of new furniture furni-ture and the tons of furnaces, refrigerators, re-frigerators, sinks, washing machines ma-chines and other equipment in new homes and you've got some of the economic picture. The people who are buying and building these homes and thus providing this employment are the home-towners of the country. Federal Housing Administration Ad-ministration statistics show clearly that four-fifths of the families buying homes today earn less than $5,000 a year. And with nearly a million new homes going up every year, the National Association of Home Builders points out, that means that 80 per cent of all the housing hous-ing produced is taken by average aver-age American wage earners. In the building trades in 1940, the worker earned $31.70 a week on the average. Today he earns $70.27 a week. The house that cost him 157 work weeks in 1940 today costs only 131 work weeks. Average income for everybody (per capita income after taxes) has gone up more than 127 per cent since 1940, according to department of commerce figures. This compared com-pared with the 99 per cent increase in construction costs, shows more than a 28 per cent advantage for all buyers generally in buying today's house. The first National Home Week was staged in 1948, at the suggestion of the American Builder, a trade magazine. It has rapidly built up into a major observance, with several million persons visiting display houses and studying demonstrations demon-strations of modern building practices. The builders were joined by manufacturers, banks and financing institutions, building build-ing suppliers and others in the industry. W. P. Atkinson, president of the NAHB, said in a recent statement announcing National Home Week? "National Home Week will be a gigantic, educational effort to enable en-able the American public to learn more about home building and home ownership. "American home builders have produced more new houses in the last few years than the world has ever seen in a similar length of time. It is important that we continue to produce a high volume of housing to avoid a housing shortage and to maintain high housing standards. "We are staging National Home Week for the fourth time in order once again to call to public attention atten-tion the importance of widespread home building. Because people everywhere are interested in new homes, National Home Week will be sponsored in every city to enable en-able citizens to understand more fully how homes are produced; what makes good houses, and how home ownership can easily be obtained ob-tained by average families." There are five major reasons for current production of well over a million homes per- year: 1. Pent-up demand caused by curtailed construction during the war years. 2. New families formed at a rate of about 750,000 per year. 3. Dissatisfaction with older-prewar older-prewar homes in contrast with th current housing product. 4. Greater buying power reimlt-in reimlt-in from higher wages. 5. New homes are better built, better equipped, easily purchased under the most liberalized financing financ-ing terms ever offered. Surprisingly enough, the largest group of home purchasers are in the lower-income brackets. Nearly a quarter (23.2 per cent) of all home buying families are in the ?3,000 to $3,500 annual income group. Twenty-one per cent of the families buying homes earn from $3,500 to $4,000; 12.7 per cent earn $4,000 to $4,500, and 10.3 per cent earn between $4,500 and $5,000. Slightly over 19 per cent of the |