The field men have found a majority of the owners and of the real-estate brokers willing and even anxious to help them in the collection of data.

Therefore sales, rents, leases, cost of buildings, building factors and future utilities all enter into real-estate values, each extending some measure of influence that must of necessity be weighed and used in the equalization by assessors with judgment and experience.

Mr. RICHARDS. In order to show the committee how near our assessments are keeping to sales

Senator KEAN. Are these present sales or past sales?

Mr. RICHARDS. No, sir; sales made during the high period.
Senator KEAN. Has the market gone off?

Mr. RICHARDS. Yes; very considerably, and I will explain that later on, in another lot of data. These sales were made during the high period of sales, for three or four years, taking in the years 1926, 1927, 1928, and 1929. The market has gone off 10 to 20 per cent, I judge.

One section is the high-class property between Sixth and Twentieth Streets and B and M Streets and Massachusetts Avenue. Out of 427 sales which amounted to $37,000,000, the assessment was $32,000,000, or very nearly 90 per cent. I do not believe that those sales to-day would come within 5 per cent, or possibly within 10 per cent of that price.

Another section is a residential section, a middle-class residential section, I might call it, running from Fifteenth to Eighteenth Streets, north of Massachusetts Avenue, and south of R Street; 56 sales amounted to $1,000,000, and the assessment was $944,000.

Another section is a fair class of homes, north of Florida Avenue, between Eleventh and Sixteenth Streets, running up to Columbia Road, a very nice class of homes are in that section, and out of 240 sales the amount was $4,617,000, and the assessment was $3,855,000, or nearly $4,000,000, or 86 per cent.

I have had several letters since then saying that they thought that the sales in that section were very nearly what our assessment is to-day. Probably some of them will not bring the assessed valuation, so that I judge that that section is very close to our assessment.

Another section is in the southeast part of the city. There were very small sales there amounting to $384,000, and it was assessed at $282,000, or 75 per cent. They are very old houses, and some of them sold at rather high prices, I should judge. I know they wouldn't bring that to-day.

Another section is in the neighborhood of the Congressional Library, where 247 sales amounted to $2,819,000, and the assessment was $2,340,000, or a total of all these sales of $46,000,000, as against nearly $40,000,000 of assessments, or about 86 per cent, taking those high prices.

I then made another test, and this will answer your question, Senator, as regarding the fall of prices.

I took houses located north of Columbia Road and west of Sixteenth Street, a very nice class of houses, middle class, and I went back to the sales of 1928 and brought them down to date, 1930. I found that if I go back to 1928 with the sales, that there were $548,000 sales as against an assessment of $442,000. That is about 83 per cent. But, I bring those down to date, the year 1930, and I find that out of $137,000 of sales that the assessment was $123,000. a drop there of 7 per cent, and it is still going on.

That indicates
Some of these

sales are at less than the assessment. Out of 15 or 16 sales, 4 or 5 are less than the assessments.

Senator KEAN. From your experience in real estate you would think that the fall in real estate has only just begun, wouldn't you? Mr. RICHARDS. Well, I would not say that. I hope that things will be getting better very soon. I think we have had our worst.

Senator KEAN. Is not real estate one of the things that goes down for some time, and the last thing to go up? Is that not the experience? Mr. RICHARDS. Yes. For example, the highest cost of construction price was in the year 1920, and yet prices of property kept going up after that when construction costs were falling.

I have a set of figures here that I would like to put in the record, because it is in realtion to the banks.

Senator BLAINE. Just explain what it is.

Mr. RICHARDS. I think the bankers are rather a conservative class of people. If they were not, we would have a good deal of trouble. They are required to send a sworn statement of their property to the Treasury. Among these sworn statements is the value of their bank and the land and the value of their personal property. I think there are 36 banks in this city.

Mr. ADDISON. Thirty-nine.

Mr. RICHARDS. I have 36 listed here. I bave eliminated a few of the smaller ones. Some of these assessments are very close to what they are being carried at. For instance, I have one here where the assessment was $262,760, and the bank listed it at $263,544.

Now, I want to explain that we have not accepted the bank's value in making up our appraisals, because we use the value of the ground as worked out with the surrounding values, and we use the value of the buildings as we cube them off, and in some cases there are very great differences. In some cases the bank will carry a book value, which is the cost value, while their property is worth even more. In other cases, they have their property listed as an asset, and in some of those cases they are higher. I have one case where we are assessing at $1,402,000, and the bank carries it at $1,683,000.

I have the case of the Munsey Trust Co., which carries it at $2,761,000, and we carry it at $2,221,000, and the reason for that is they had a splendid front to their building at one time, but they tore out that front and put in another front and they still carried on their books the cost of the whole thing. The valuation is not there, and I just mention that as an indication of some of these differences.

The total carried by all the banks is $21,048,304, and the assessment is $22,124,796, or 105.1 per cent, 5 per cent above what the banks

carry.

(The statement referred to is as follows:)

Mr. RICHARDS. As another illustration, I want to take up our handling of apartments, to show to what details some of these apartments are gone into. The office has lately made a special study of apartment costs, as to every kind of detail. I have here a sample of what it cost to build an apartment of 1,000,000 cubic feet in the year 1914, which was $200,000. The same apartment, thrown into details, and built in 1928, would have cost $370,000, or 80 per cent above.

I have been asked in some cases whether we go by what is shown on the permits as to our valuations. I will say that we pay no attention to the permits, only in a general way, and for this reason. I am going to submit some cases here, which will illustrate that:

In January, 1928, a permit was taken out for an apartment on lot 24 in square 1972. The number of cubic feet was 900,000, which at 45 cents per cube would be $405,000. A top figure would be $405,000, although the estimate given in the permit was $600,000.

An apartment house built on lots 16 and 17 in square 1879 was begun in May, 1926, and finished in January, 1927. The estimate of cost given this office was $126,000. However, it has 430,000 cubic feet and cost a little over 49 cents a cube, or about $180,000. estimate in the permit is $225,000.

The

In square 168, at the southeast corner, an apartment was built in 1927. It has 11 stores and steam heat and outside finish of brick and stone, It cost about $800,000. The estimate for the building alone is $1,100,000 and sold in September, 1927, for less than its estimated cost.

An apartment on Columbia Road, lot 37, square 2535, was begun in April, 1926, and contained 745,000 cubic feet and could not have cost over $350,000. The estimates in the permit is $500,000.

An apartment on Fourteenth Street, lot 802, in square 2696, was built in 1925 and 1926 and contains 450,000 cubic feet. The estimate in the permit is $200,000, although it cost below this figure.

In May, 1926, an apartment was started on lot 14, square 2940, and the estimate in the permit was given as $100,000. In 1928, it sold for $75,000. See appeal in this office.

In October, 1926, a permit was taken out for an apartment on lots 46 and 57 to 61, in square 2971. The estimate in the permit was $160,000, although the land and building sold in 1928 for $117,000. See appeal.

An apartment on lot 78, in square 197, gave an estimate in the permit of $154,000 and sold in 1925 for $124,600.

In square 2541, lot 806, the estimate in the permit is for $307,000. The property was traded in 1926 and is for sale for $300,000. See appeal.

In square 67, lot 801, an estimate in the permit is $100,000, while the land and improvements sold in 1927 for that amount.

In square 2549, lot 856, a permit was taken out in August, 1925, for $150,000 and traded in 1926, and is now for sale for $125,000. See appeal.

In the year 1918 or 1919, before things commenced to jump so much, I examined the sales then coming on of about 25 or 30 apartments. At that time we were assessing at two-thirds value. Those sales were in 1916, 1917, and 1918, before the jumps began. The total full value then indicated was $2,420,000, and the total sales