The property, mostly neglected apartment and tenement houses, was in an almost equally bad way whether one regarded it from the standpoint of sanitation, comfort, or cold financial returns.

The fault for this was due to the fact that the Sherwoods had left the property entirely in the care of the agents, and the agents, being old, old-fashioned, and weary of business to the point of being almost ready to retire, had left the property to itself.
Prompted by these bad conditions, and to some degree by the then critical housing famine, with its records of some thousands of families having no place at all to go and some thousands of families being compelled for the sake of mere shelter to pay two and three times what they could afford for a few poor rooms, and with its records of profiteering landlords, Larry began to make notes for a plan which he intended later to elaborate--a plan which he tentatively entitled: "Suggestions for the Development of Sherwood Real-Estate Holdings." Larry, knowing from the stubs of Miss Sherwood's checkbook what would be likely to please her, gave as much consideration to Service as to Profit.

The basis of his growing plan was good apartments at fair rentals.

That he saw as the greatest of public services in the present crisis.

But the return upon the investment had to be a reasonable one.
Larry did not believe in Charity, except for extreme cases.