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Show 'HOME SUBSIDY IS CAUSING GROWING FIGHT How to keep the price of new homes down and how, to build them faster by eliminating the delay now caused by building materials shortages is developing a struggle in Washington between backers of a materials subsidy plan and manufacturers who are arguing for price increases on certain key building materials, according ac-cording to the N. Y. Journal of Commerce. Both sides in the strugle are demanding de-manding government action to stimulate increased production of building materials. Housing Expediter Expe-diter Wyatt has already gone on record as favoring a subsidy plan. Opponents of subsidies argue that the time required to place a subsidy sub-sidy plan into operation will further fur-ther delay the end of the nation's critical housing shortage. The subsidy group believes that prices for building materials will result in higher prices for new homes. They point out that most veterans cannot afford to purchase homes costing more than $6,000, and it is argued that a materials price increase of less than 20 will, raise the cost of a $6,000 home to between $6500 and $7000. Economiss of the building materials ma-terials industry claim that an average av-erage increase of 10 percent on materials prices will actually reduce re-duce the cost of new homes by 10 to 15 percent. Stimulating production produc-tion of materials by increasing increas-ing prices, they claim, will wipe out the present black market that is increasing the cost of many new homes and will eliminate the costly delays on partially completed com-pleted homes which are forcing contractors to charge higher prices. |