“The cost of buying a home in the United States has more than doubled while Jimmy Carter has been president” This statement by Rep. James G. Martin, R-N.C. in the House of Representatives dramatizes one of the saddest angles of the inflation surge of recent years. Families who pursue the American tradition of home ownership can face tremendous financial challenges unless blessed with upper-strata salaries. When Carter took office in January, 1977, the FHA interest rate was at 8 percent and the average sales price of a new single family home was $51.300. Martin told his House colleagues. “The monthly payments to amortize the loan on the average new home based on a $50.000 mortgage for 30 years at 8 percent was $367.” Today the FHA interest rate is 12’/; percent, down from 14 percent in April and up from 11’/z percent in early August, Martin noted. N “And the latest average sales price of a new single family home (June) was $77,900. The monthly payments necessary to amortize the loan on the average new home based on a $75,000 mortgage for 30 years at 12 percent is $771.” Martin said his figures “are generous toward the record of the Carter Administration in that today’s FHA interest rate is widely regarded as being too low and the September average sales price is undoubtedly higher than June’s. Even so, he said. the figures show an increase of at least 110 percent in the monthly payment necessary tu purchase the average price new home in the 2’/2-price years since Carter became president. Carter has contended in obvious campaign hyperbole that “We have cut inflation sharply,” though his own advisers, says the Wall Street Journal, expect a 13.4 percent retail rise this year from last. This would compare with 13 percent in 1979 and 6.3 percent over an 11-year period ending in 1978 (figures by privately-organized “Committee to Fight Inflation” headed by Arthur F. Burns). inflation is a national scourge still unbridled and its effect on homebuying is one of the cruelest aspects.