Old newspaper proclaims "Hope Ahead for Housing, Construction!"

Let's hope that headline is prophetic, no?!

I had a lot of pent-up frustration after my beloved Gators lost on Saturday, so decided to use the energy for a positive purpose and finally tackled the cellar.

In so doing, I discovered a ton of old newspapers--including the Business Section from the Orlando Sentinel dated 27 July 1975. Here's a transcript of the entire article as written by real estate writer Charles Guthrie:

The housing and construction industries began 1975 with the question, can we survive in '75, as the bite of the recession clamped down on the overbuilt Greater Orlando area.

A half-year later the economic roadside is littered with the bodies of defunct developers, builders and construction workers, but compared with those even darker days of six months ago, the remainder of 1975 shows a flicker of promise in some areas.

The good news first:

New house building permist are gradually increasing as the heavy inventory of unsold, never occupied homes is slowly reduced.

THE BIGGEST SELLER is the home below $30,000, now called low-cost, a market largely untapped by developers and builders until the boom bust and the lower priced homes were all most people could afford.

There's a quickly developing trend toward the "basic house," with "frills" such as Florida rooms and air conditioning sold on an option basis.

More attention is being paid by architects to better utilization of space in the smaller house (most in the 1,000 square foot range) and provisions by the builder for easy expansion when the owner wants it and can afford it.

AN IRONY OF the times: Most people buying the basic, no-frills houses are adding air conditioning.

The glutted rental apartment market occupancy rate has risen about 5 per cent in the past few months, to about 70 per cent as rent wars rage among competitors and only a minimal number of new units go on line.

Condominiums are still suffering, but offer great buys and in many instances the $2,000 tax credit.

The bad news:

UNEMPLOYMENT IN the construction industry is more than 25 per cent, says George W. Holleman, executive secretary of the Central Florida Builders Exchange. He doesn't see substantial improvement this year.

Building permits in Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties totaled $67.9 million the first six months of 1975 compared with $165 million the first six months of 1974.

Single-family home permits in Orange County came to 485 from January through June this year. Last year 713 were issued during the same six-month period.

OFFICE SPACE continues to glut the market, with absorption crawling at a pace estimated to take two to three years to reach 100 per cent.

But as bad as things are, "I don't think we're in any calamity," Holleman said.