Cheap Dwelling Houses
This article appeared in the Minneapolis Tribune
on April 30, 1873.
Very few of the hundreds of dwelling houses being erected here
are designed for rent, and at the present time there is a pressing
necessity for more dwelling houses in the city. Every day brings
its quota of strangers who are looking around for a place to locate
permanently, and many leave for no other reason than that suitable
houses cannot be obtained. The pressing necessity is for dwelling
houses of four to six rooms to accommodate families who cannot afford
to pay more than from $12 to $20 per month for rent. Two hundred
such could be rented in one month, even though situated at a considerable
distance from the mills and manufactories. The boarding houses are
full; the hotels are full; many families are already undergoing
the doubling up process, and the cry is "still they come."
It is suggested that if private individuals will not invest their
means in building dwelling houses, because it will not pay them
20 per cent on the investment, that a building association might
be organized, a tract of land bought up, and a cheap class of small
cottages or tenement houses erected thereon, and that at least fifteen
per cent could be realized, from the start. How it would work we
do not know, but the fact that the demand largely exceeds the supply
cannot be ruled out.
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