THE QUALITY HOUSE

The U.S. Needs Better Places to Live

THE time has come to stop talking about the $12,000 or the $15,000 or the $20,000 house. We need to talk about the kind of quality housing which people in different income brackets can afford, or are willing to make sacrifices for because they promise so much in happy living." In these words, Federal Housing Administrator Norman Mason summed up a new job for the U.S. homebuilding industry--the building of better as well as more houses.

Since World War II the big drive has been to produce the maximum number of houses at the lowest possible prices. What Mason now wants is to put the emphasis on quality, to encourage building better homes which will attract owners of less desirable houses to buy up, thereby upgrading the nation's entire housing supply. While much of the emergency postwar housing gave sound value, a lot of it was pure junk. In 1952 a congressional committee toured the U.S., found thousands of unhappy home buyers saddled with long-term mortgages on houses with floors that heaved like the ocean in a full gale, doors that would not close, and foundations that had settled away from the baseboard.

Fly-by-night builders and obsolete housing codes that often worked to restrict better homes were partly to blame for such conditions. But the major responsibility lay in Government appraisal practices, which set the standards for the industry, and which Mason has worked to change. Rules for figuring mortgages are often drawn in terms of the cheapest material available. Thus, as far as getting a mortgage is concerned, it makes little difference whether a builder puts in a 20-year furnace for $350 or a $275 job that wears out after five years. The builder is free to add quality features if he wants to, at the risk of raising the down payment so high that it scares off customers, even though the additional cost is usually small, e.g., $150 added to the cost of a roof will add years to its life. Worst of all, good design, good site placement and all other things that add so much to resale value and the householders' enjoyment go unrewarded. A house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright may be assigned a value for loan purposes no higher than a house using the same materials and plans made by a builder as he goes along.

Contrasted with the minimum house is the goal of the quality house. Last month leading architects, builders and manufacturers met in Manhattan in a housing conference called by the building magazine HOUSE & HOME, drew up a blueprint for the kind of house Americans should have. Fifteen points were agreed on. The most important: houses should have more space for living and storage. Other points: year-round air conditioning, two baths, a fully equipped kitchen and laundry (builders can buy appliances from distributors substantially below prices available to individual buyers), at least a 100-amperes electric service system, more acoustical tile and heavier walls to cut down on noise, full insulation to save on heating and cooling bills, an entry connecting with all areas of the house to eliminate using the living room as a hall, and private outdoor living areas. -

Four out of five new homes awaiting sale today are not quality but minimum houses, stripped-down models designed for the null family. Yet into this classification fit only 45% of U.S. families and they are steadily diminishing in number. Last December FHA Chief Mason noted that buyers were putting less than a fifth of their incomes into shelter.

Since then he has called in outside experts to help him rewrite some minimum property requirements and credit rules. Next week he plans a conference on new valuation ideas, one aim of which will be to encourage the use of better housing materials with low maintenance cost. Also in the works are new FHA appraisal rules to upgrade housing, plus a trade-in program that will assure interim financing for older houses while they are being exchanged for new ones, and at the same time cut red tape and closing fees to make it almost as easy to trade in a used house as a used car. This will enable families to buy up or down the line in house size, neighborhood or price range as changing family fortunes and needs dictate.

All "this, says Mason, is part of a housing revolution that buyers, builders and manufacturers must support. Up to now, many builders who added extra features to their houses failed to attract buyers because they had not been educated to recognize quality. Manufacturers of building materials have also stressed cost, rather than quality, even though they would all benefit from better homes. By emphasizing quality, they could attract more buyers to the market, help step up the yearly building rate from the present 1,117,000 to the 1,400,000 most experts think the U.S. needs.

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