The Templeton System

"Private enterprise had better get a social conscience if it's going to justify its existence." The speaker was Harry R. Templeton, vice president of the Cleveland Trust Co. And last week Templeton showed that he had a social conscience. Builders started work on a 50-unit veterans' housing project. The Templeton system, he thought, would solve the veterans' housing shortage if enough other advocates of private enterprise followed it.

Harry Templeton did not think that the Government was getting houses built fast enough. So he got together with Realtor Milton Ludwig and Builder George B. Payne to form the Painesville Civic Housing Co. Their aim: build low-cost houses for veterans by putting them up at little more than cost.

The corporation bought 20 acres in Painesville (30 miles from Cleveland) with $11,500 borrowed from the Cleveland Trust Co. On it, Payne's company is building the houses on a cost-plus-10% basis. Estimated profit: $100 to $150 per house. Ludwig will get only $50 for selling the house and handling the paper work. The architect will get $10 a house. The Cleveland Trust Co. will give mortgages, at 4% interest, up to the full price of the house. Templeton is betting that the houses will cost less than $6,000 each. Buyers will pay $6,000. But they will get a refund if the houses cost less. Says Templeton: "I've bet a builder $10 to a bottle of Scotch that the veterans will get a rebate of about $500."

For his $5,500 (if Templeton is right), the veteran will get a 4 1/2-room, one-story frame house with overall measurements of 26 by 26 feet. Much of the interior will be unfinished, i.e., no kitchen cabinets, no paint on the walls, no eave troughs, etc. Templeton thinks that this saves the veteran money without depriving him of any necessities. But he has another reason. He hopes that veterans will do most of the necessary finishing work themselves. He has found that homeowners who have put some of their own sweat into a house are the best mortgage risks.

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