Among the many valuable freehold properties in the City of Dunedin are those belonging to Lund's trustees, and held for many years past on lease by various persons and firms.
Away back in the fifties, we are informed, two enterprising young men - Messrs W. Lund and J. D. Napier - came out to the colonies with several hundred pounds between them.
Dunedin was then, of course, in its quite early infancy, and the money was invested in properties in what at that time promised to be the future business quarters of the city, chiefly about Stafford street and the vicinity.
There was no reclaimed land then, the water lapping close up to Princes street, and even crossing it where the Market Reserve now presents a spot of beauty, with a wide margin of valuable city blocks between that and the railway yards, and eventually with another considerable margin to the new waterfront.
Before the investments were made the Presbyterian Church Board and the Town Board, which later evolved into the City Corporation, had allotted to it a large number of freehold sections, not only in the city, but in the suburbs and country.
These properties are at the present time let on lease for 21 years, with valuation for improvements, and are an immense source of revenue both to the church and the corporation.
These properties served as a guide to the young investors; wherever there is a Church Board or City Corporation lease in the city a Lund's lease or a Napier's lease will be found not far away.
The Napier leases are similar to the church and corporation leases, but the Lund's leases were made out for 60 years, with the ground rental fixed every 10 years; but the lessee gets no valuation at the end of the term of lease.
These leases have now many splendid buildings erected upon them, principally in Princes street and George street, with others in Moray place, the Octagon, and Maclaggan street, and the owners of these, knowing the cost of their buildings and improvements to be yearly falling into the owners of the freehold, have been agitating for a long time to secure the freeholds.
Mr Lund, who was the son of a successful ironmonger in Edinburgh, who made a fortune from a patent cork puller, died many years ago, and, the property becoming a trust estate, the trustees could not dispose of the freehold.
The estate, however, has now been divided into four trusts, and two of these trusts' freehold properties are to be put up for sale by auction shortly, thus giving the owners a chance to secure the freehold and save their buildings, and making a sale otherwise of a most interesting character.
•A long search and a weary wait have usually to be faced by the seeker after a house to let in Wellington (says the New Zealand Times).
Nearly every house agent in the city has a waiting list of people anxious to find a dwelling, and some of them have been waiting a long time. It is stated that almost "any old sort of a house'' will readily be taken up.
The competition is so keen that people walk about the suburbs, not only to search for empty houses, but to try and discover signs of the erection of houses which may possibly be to let later.
A certain landlord had a very striking experience in this regard lately. He determined to build three houses, and sent a representative to mark off the plot of land.
Before this operation was finished, before the first piece of timber or the first brick was on the ground, all the houses had been let on lease - one for five years, the second for three years, and the third for two years.
- ODT, 3.8.1916.
